Wifi Trends

AT&T is now offering free access to its WiFi networks for customers who subscribe company’s higher broadband services, such as Pro, Elite and FastAccess bringing a greater mobility to current broadband services in the country.

According to AT&T, the customers of higher-end broadband connections can now access its more than 10,000 hotspots nationwide.

These hotspots are located in airports, coffee shops, McDonald’s restaurants and Barnes & Nobel bookstores.

However, customers who subscribe lower tire services need to pay $1.99 per month for the unlimited WiFi access, while non-subscribers are required to pay $7.99 per day.

With nearly 12.9 million customers in the list for the AT&T broadband services, the announcement like this boosts the concept of Wi-Fi as an alternate way for subscribers to connect to the mobile Internet and VoIP.

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As a part of its plan to include WiMAX capabilities in mobile phones in the second half of 2008, handset manufacturer, Motorola has launched its first truly mobile WiMAX 802.16e compliant chipset.

Soon, citizens of Riverside will access free wireless Internet service across the city. Riverside has launched a free wireless Internet network to help residents of the city to become more Internet savvy. The city government has launched the free wireless Internet service in collaboration with AT&T and municipal Internet network builder MetroFi. Now, the city has joined 300 cities across the nation, which are already providing citywide wireless network for residents and businesses.

Initially the network will cover a 3-square-mile area, encompassing downtown Riverside, Hunter Technology Park and the Adams Auto Centre. In the next phase of the development, the network will cover the entire city, except for a few outlaying areas. The network uses two spectrum’s, which are given below:

1) 2.4 Gigahertz frequency for the general public
2) 4.9 Gigahertz frequency for police and fire

The network will allow city workers to use their network for the remote operation of ball field lights as well as water pumps and valves, so that they can save staff time as well as electricity. The public safety spectrum would not be fully operational until the network is active throughout the city. As it goes live, police officers would be able to transmit real-time video feeds from their dashboard cameras to police headquarters, while dispatchers would be able to send video to patrol units.

There are other municipal applications, including streaming video from street cameras for traffic management, broadcasting radio signals to control baseball field lighting systems and monitoring surveillance cameras set up in locations where graffiti vandalism and illegal dumping are a problem.

Image Credit: Mass Transmit

Via: LA Times

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has turned down a free WiFi plan put forward by M2Z Networks saying that the regulatory authority can not permit a single company to control a large segment of spectrum without overlooking the public interest.

Sprint has been working on deploying a WiMAX network across the nation. Sprint Nextel has partnered with the Clearwire to develop the single largest WiMAX network in the US. The high-speed WimAX service will allow customers to move between their networks and reduce the costs of wireless service.

The WiMAX is designed to deliver mobile broadband services in urban and rural markets. It is expected that the wireless service will enable each company to increase its capital efficiency and reduce overall network development and operating costs. Sprint will primarily focus on geographic areas under its network plan, which covers approximately 185 million people, including 75 percent of the people who are located in the 50 largest markets. While Clearwire will cover approximately 115 million people.

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire are planning to provide open access of Internet over a robust wireless broadband network, which is designed to deliver comparable speeds than the existing wireline broadband services. The service will also facilitate the Federal Government and public safety agencies, who are heavily rely on wireless networks during times of crisis.

According to Stanford Group analyst, Michael Nelson, WiMAX is an emerging wireless technology, in which Sprint and Clearwire have endorsed. They are planning to use WiMax to compete with rival wireless and wired broadband networks.

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will market mobile WiMAX services under their common service brand name. While Clearwire will provide mobile WiMAX services through Sprint Nextel’s retail stores and through its own distribution channels.

Image Credit: Cell Net Wireless & Infinity

Via: Market Watch

Is Google going wireless? The search giant has clubbed up with Sprint Nextel in a WiMax deal to develop a new mobile internet portal to provide sophisticated web search and social networking services to the customers. However, the financial details of the deal are not revealed by the companies.

According to the recent agreement, Google will provide its email, chatting, social networking, calendaring and other such services to Sprint customers next year, who use company’s wireless broadband network.

Sprint Nextel would extend its open standard APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for programmers to make Google Web services accessible on WiMax-supported devices such as NBs and phones.

The WiMax service will be tested in Washington and Baltimore by the end of this year and large-scale rollout next year.

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Portland, Oregon based testing-systems vendor and the leader in wireless networking functional and performance analysis systems, VeriWave has launched a new product, which constitutes a brand new LAN testing concept in the 802.11 world, a suit of traffic simulations modeled on the actual traffic patterns of individual vertical market.

VeriWave’s WiMax Real World Traffic Tests eliminates guesswork, which is associated with predicting how specific equipment and network configuration will perform in live environments. It is available in variety of flavors like healthcare, education, office building, hot spot environments, government, and law enforcement. The new products allows equipment manufacturers, network integrators and service providers to offer solutions, which are specific to industries and IT managers to verify vendor claims and test network designs without compromising mission critical applications.

According to Eran Karoly, VeriWave’s vice president of marketing, using the WiMax, the product has ability to generate a wide variety of real world traffic mixes and, suppliers. Users are able to pre-qualify solutions for specific industries as well as their own individual business environments.

The company has gained the first-hand insights into traffic patterns representative in various businesses as well as the unique challenges of planning and meeting service level agreements within each industry.

Image Credit: MarketWire & WSD mag

Via: More RFID

TPO Displays Corp (TPO) has unveiled new technology, named Ambient Light Sensor (ALS) for LTPS applications. TPO ALS technology measures the ambient light intensity and also adjusts the backlight levels.

TPO ALS technology converts the measured photocurrent into a robust digital signal. Thus it improves the overall ALS stability as compared to a Si-based ALS systems, which supply a frail analog output signal. After processing sensor output signals, the driver IC will send data using the preferred interface. The technology offers a leading light intensity measurement range from 10 lux up to 55 k lux. Even the technology also reduces the ambient light signal generated by a masked sensor from, which is generated by an exposed sensor signal, allowing ambient light measurements from levels lower than 10 lux.

The ambient light signals are converted on-glass into a robust PWM signal by using the properties to intrinsic LTPS technology. ALS technology also eliminates the need for a separate light sensor for mobile phone applications. Even it reduces the cost of components and increases design space. Additionally, TPO ALS technology is able to reduce power consumption in mobile applications through backlight control.

Image Credit: Oled

Via: Tech On

The Wi-Fi Alliance has provided 802.11n Draft 1.0 certification to NETGEAR’s wireless routers. The worldwide provider of advanced and branded networking products, NETGEAR announced that a Gigabit Edition (WNR854T) of RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Router and RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Router (WNR834B) have received 802.11n draft 2.0 product certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance.

The new logo defines that NETGEAR’s RangeMax NEXT product is able to connect with other Wi-Fi certified products. Additionally, all RangeMax NEXT 802.11n Draft 1.0 products are firmware upgradeable to the IEEE Draft 2.0 specification.

NETGEAR’s RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Router-Gigabit Edition (WNR854T) and RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Router (WNR834B) uses the ‘Steady-Stream’ technology to provide maximum coverage and bandwidth. The RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Routers are easy to set up with NETGEAR’s Smart Wizard. While the WNR854T and WNR834B Wireless-N routers are compatible with existing wireless devices, including 54 Mbps 802.11g and 11 Mbps 802.11b.

According to Vivek Pathela, vice president of product marketing at NETGEAR, RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N products will enable company’s customers to enjoy wide range of next generation applications like high-definition video streaming, online gaming, IP telephony and fast file transfers of music and photos.

Image Credit: NetGear

Via: Engadget

Now Wi-Fi will not be a short range communication link as a researcher has set up the world’s longest communication link via Wi-Fi.

The researcher named, Ermanno Pietrosemoli, president of the Escuela Latinoamerica de Redes connected two computers one located in El Aguila and other in Platillon Mountain, Venezuela. That is a distance of more than 382 kilometers.

To achieve this staggering communication link the researcher used a technology from Intel, which is offering its own long-range Wi-Fi equipment and he also used some off the shelf parts. Even at such a large distance the researcher achieved about 3 megabits per second in each direction, which is respectable by all means.

Conventional Wi-Fi signals only go for a few meters, the reason for this is that the signals are sent in all directions, however if the signal is transmitted in a single direction then the range can be enhanced and that is what this researcher has done.

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Via: Aviransplace