NetStumbler.com

Hansa Buss has a new line of coaches with WiFi on board. With a $40 one-way ticket, passengers can connect to the Internet during the full five-hour travel from Tallinn, Estonia, to Riga, Latvia.

Prior to launching the line on March 1, Hansa board member Taivo Puuorg sought the advice of Veljo Haamer. The Estonian Wi-Fi pioneer flew to California last summer to understand the technology behind the Wi-Fi equipped Altamont Commuter Express train that journeys between Stockton, California and San Jose, California thrice a day. Haamer is now looking at deploying Wi-Fi in a six-hour train trip between the Estonian capital and St. Petersburg, and plans to study how the same technology can be installed in sea ferries linking Tallinn with Helsinki, Finland.
Via [wired.com]

Analysts are skeptical that Sprint Nextel will meet its target of launching its WiMax network in the U.S. in 2008. According to Dresdner Kleinwort, “the whole project will be marred by severe delays, quality deficiencies and functional slippages.” The analyst firm does not see mass market rollout until 2009 to 2010. Vendors at the 3GSM show in Barcelona had the same opinion.

Sprint affirmed that the development of the network is progressing smoothly. A company spokesman said the soft launches will take place by the end of the year and the commercial launch is due in 2008, with coverage expected to reach 100 million people. He downplayed the message of the earnings call, which suggested that Sprint hopes to expand its list of partner-investors that currently include Intel, Motorola and Samsung. He said the earnings call is just a reiteration of the company’s previous announcements. The representative pointed out that the 4G capital expenditure in 2007 has been reduced from $1 billion to $800 million following vendor contract finalization.
Via [unstrung.com]

The U.S. leads countries in Wi-Fi usage, accounting for 59 percent of the global total, according to the latest research by iPass. Ahead of Germany, Japan and Singapore, is the U.K., which took the second spot with 11 percent. London emerged in front of Singapore, New York and San Francisco as the city with the highest Wi-Fi use. According to iPass, user education drives Wi-Fi growth as more people recognize the advantages of having Internet access wherever they are.
Via [networks.silicon.com]

London has the most number of people connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots at non-business locations, according to a new study by iPass. The British capital, the report said, had over 11,000 access sessions at areas such as cafes and bookshops over a period of six months. The volume is twice that of Singapore. The iPass Wi-Fi hotspot index showed a 75 percent jump in U.K. access sessions from July to December 2006, with Heathrow airport as the most popular spot, followed by Gatwick airport. Similar trend is seen in Europe – European WiFi access sessions rose by 74 percent. Growth of global Wi-Fi use, however, is lower, only rising by 44 percent.
Via [vnunet.com]

Silicon.com continues with its Fair Wi-Fi campaign, which urges hotels in the U.K. to be more transparent as to how they charge customers for Wi-Fi use. Today, hotel Wi-Fi prices vary some charge a flat fee of £50 while others impose an hourly rate of £5.

According to Graeme Powell, MD of iBahn, knowing the costs of installing a wireless network and ensuring the quality of service is crucial in determining whether hotels are ripping off their guests. Powell said deploying a Wi-Fi network in an average-sized hotel of between 200 and 300 rooms would amount to £30,000. But in the U.K. the equation would include the build and age of the building.

Tony Walsh, development manager at hotel bookings firm LateRooms.com, argued that hotels should regard Wi-Fi access as a regular feature considering the increasing demand for the service. He conceded that setting up a wireless network would be costly, but the service would bring long-term benefits in the form of repeat bookings from Wi-Fi hungry business travelers.
Via [silicon.com]

Clearwire has gone public. The company’s initial public offering was scheduled for March 6, and through it, Clearwire hoped to raise $513 million or about $25 to $27 per share. Scott Sweet, managing partner at IPOBoutique.com, expected the share price to come to between $25 and $27, thus generating some $621 million for Clearwire, one of the few companies that own spectrum suited for WiMax. The optimism is understandable in view of Clearwire CEO Craig McCaw’s track record — in 1994, McCaw sold his cellular phone empire to AT&T for $11.5 billion. In addition, Clearwire has technology heavyweights — Intel and Motorola — as partner-investors. Intel and Clearwire have teamed up to develop products based on WiMax while Motorola provides equipment to Clearwire.

Panasonic has unveiled its new Wi-Fi Skype phone, which it plans to sell for $399.95. The KX-WP1050 Panasonic Wi-Fi Phone kit features a cordless handset with a 1.8-inch LCD display for viewing Skype contact lists, call histories, and address books, a wireless base station with 256-bit AES encryption (WPA) to ensure security of calls, and a leather carrying case.

On its rechargeable lithium-ion battery, the Panasonic handset boasts up to 55 hours of standby time and 4.5 hours of talk time. Users can also connect the phone to a PC via an optional USB connection.
Via [news.digitaltrends.com]

Residents of and visitors to Paris will soon get free wireless broadband connection anywhere in the French capital. The city government has chosen Alcatel-Lucent and leading French mobile carrier SFR to build the citywide Wi-Fi network. The service, which will rely on 400 new access points, is expected to be operational by the third quarter of this year.
Via [computerweekly.com]

Fujitsu and KDDI are coming out with a high-efficiency mobile WiMAX amplifier that could pave the way for cheaper and less energy consuming base stations. After optimizing the amplifier circuits of a gallium-nitride (GaN) HEMT device, Fujistu went on to build a prototype transmitter amplifier that can attain power efficiency of about 30 percent with 25W power output in the 2.5GHz operational spectrum. This level is twice the efficiency of existing amplifiers.
Via [wirelessweek.com]

After Sprint Nextel, other carriers have announced that they also plan to venture into WiMax. According to TeleGeography Research, over 200 operators worldwide are now testing the technology or have deployed commercial WiMax networks, with the most recent being Horizon Wi-Com and CTC Telcom in the U.S., the national Hellenic Telecommunications Organization in Greece, and several operators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Still, all eyes remain on Sprint and its mobile WiMax plans, which would cost $1.1 billion in 2007. The company has chosen Samsung equipment and handsets for its initial service in Washington DC while Motorola will provide the infrastructure and handsets in Chicago, both of which are due to be launched by the end of 2007. Nokia, meanwhile, will supply the equipment and phones in an unspecified location. Sprint clarified that it is still open to signing a smaller contract with another vendor in the future.

Bin Shen, Sprint’s vice president of broadband, said the company expects the service to attain commercial viability in 2008. By the end of the said year, network coverage is projected to reach at least 100 million people.
Via [wirelessweek.com]

According to David Maynor, chief technology officer at Errata Security, computers are “leaking all kinds of information that an attacker can use” once they connect to a Wi-Fi network, particularly in public areas such as airports. Existing tools can obtain important details like usernames and passwords for e-mail accounts and instant messengers. To address this situation, Errata announced it will release a tool called Ferret that informs users how much information they are making available to the public once their computers start searching for wireless networks and network services. The Errata sniffer, which will be released on the company’s website, can run on any wireless card. Robert Graham, the firm’s chief executive, promised to publish the sniffer’s code on the Black Hat website soon.

In the case of a Windows computer, Ferret can generate a roster of wireless networks to which the PC secured connection previously, provided the user has not taken out the entries from the preferred networks list in Windows. The Bonjour feature reveals the version of the operating system used by Apple Mac OS X computers. The sniffer also shows the past Internet Protocol address and information on networked drives or devices like printers that the computer tried to access earlier.
Via [news.zdnet.com]

Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead has wrapped up a year-long trial of integrated wireless networking technologies to boost patient care and improve the efficiency of its manual processes. The project involved the installation of 40 Cisco 1200 series wireless networking access points, 40 Vocera hands-free communication badges, 10 Dell notebook computers, which used customized, battery-powered trolleys called COWS (computers on wheels), and 6 Dell PDAs.

The infrastructure provided access to patient records and a rapid voice communication system through the use of portable voice badges, which clinicians wore around their necks. The devices allowed for voice-activated calls to a co-worker, thus reducing “a lot of running around,” and could receive external calls since they are integrated with the hospital’s PABX. They also served as emergency beacons as they can simultaneously transmit a voice stream to all badges.

Prior to the trial, the hospital commissioned the NTF Group to perform a business process audit between June 2005 and December 2006 to determine the feasibility of the project. The research firm projected that, on the basis of staff-time reduction, the hospital will incur savings of A$450,000 ($352,700 U.S.) annually.
Via [computerworld.com]

Tesco has begun offering VoIP service, allowing subscribers to call each other for free. Calls, however, to U.K. landlines and select international destinations entail a fee of as little as 2p per minute while those to U.K. mobile numbers require payment of 10p per minute except for Hutchison 3G, which is costlier by 15p. Costs of international calls and services like 0845 numbers range from 10p to 30p depending on the destination country and whether the user is contacting a landline or mobile phone. Calls to satellite phones are the priciest, starting from £2.70 per minute to dial an Inmarsat phone in the Indian B area, to £60 per minute to ring a Thuraya phone. Tesco provides a headset and three handsets that plug into a PC one of these is a cordless variant – for the service.
Via [vnunet.com]

According to John C. Dvorak, cellular service companies are out to kill Wi-Fi, being their largest threat in the long term. The technology’s popularity, as indicated by a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey, has grown significantly over the last two years: about 34 percent of Internet users secure online access via Wi-Fi connections, as compared to only 22 percent in 2005, and 19 percent now have home wireless networks, a 9 percent jump from a year ago.

The largest concern for cellphone service carriers is the emerging trend of free municipal or citywide Wi-Fi coverage. Wireless networks can deliver speeds of 54 Mbps and can easily go up to 100 Mbps, with pre-802.11n. Cellophone connections are slower — speeds only range from 384 Kbps with EDGE to 2 Mbps on EV-DO — and costlier, with plans amounting to $50, $60, or $70 per month.
Via [pcmag.com]

Research firm Ovum expects the uptake of dual-mode phones to be minimal – only about 2 percent or 5.5 million people in the U.S. As such, it is urging equipment vendors and carriers to concentrate more on other opportunities for fixed-mobile convergence such as identity convergence and remote access. Identity convergence enables customers to keep the same phone number, e-mail address, and usernames/passwords regardless of their location or the device that they are using at the time. Remote access, meanwhile, allows users to control household devices like home security or DVR systems via their mobile phones.

In spite of Ovum’s warning, T-Mobile is proceeding with its @Home service, which lets subscribers to switch between cell and WiFi networks without having to change phones or phone numbers. The company started offering this service in select test markets during the latter part of last year.
Via [arstechnica.com]