The city of Philadelphia and Verizon Communications Inc. struck an agreement Tuesday that would allow the city to provide wireless Internet access as a municipal service even if Gov. Ed Rendell signs legislation to give Verizon the power to scuttle the project.
Philadelphia's plans are the most ambitious of any major U.S. city to provide free or cheap high-speed wireless to all residents.
Philadelphia's plan to offer inexpensive wireless Internet as a municipal service -- the most ambitious yet by a major U.S. city -- has collided with commercial interests including the local phone company, Verizon Communications Inc.
In fact, a bill on Gov. Ed Rendell's desk that could humble Philadelphia's ambitions began 19 months ago as a proposal drafted by lobbyists for telecommunications companies.
Dennis Tseng is an avid Web surfer who loves to hang out in Taipei's upmarket Hsinyi district, where wireless Internet access is freely available to all.
Whether he's waiting outside a department store for his wife to finish shopping or enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon at an outdoor cafe, Tseng will whip out his electronic organiser to check his email, make a doctor's appointment or review movie listings.
Spain is the latest country to embrace the emerging high-end broadband wireless technology, following recent deployments in France, Ireland and the UK.
Spanish wireless operator Iberbanda has begun to install WiMax systems supplied by Alvarion, according to Bridget Fishleigh, a spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv manufacturer.
"Iberbanda has been using proprietary wireless local loop technology from Alvarion since 2001 but has now decided to expand its growing network in Spain with WiMax," Fishleigh said.
UK businesses are picking up on the benefits of wireless networking but are worryingly clueless when it comes to securing the technology, according to a survey from security vendor SonicWALL.
Over 70 per cent of the 400 companies surveyed said they had, or were planning to, install wireless local area networks (Lans) in their offices. Over two thirds cited the increased flexibility offered by the technology as the main reason for installation.
IT organisations have slowly begun to dip their feet into the Wireless Land Area Network (WLAN) waters. By the end of this year, 30% of organisations will have transitioned WLAN trials into full production, according to research released today by META Group.
WLAN adoption will accelerate over the next two years, with more than 50% of organizations deploying WLAN by 2006.
The dramatic rise in adoption rates, according to META Group analysts, can be traced to enhanced security developments, specifically, the introduction of WiFi Protected Access (WPA) models:
Cisco Systems Wednesday unveiled a line of enterprise-grade multi-band wireless access points that include beefed up security. It also said it is adding intrusion detection capabilities for its entire Structured Wireless-Aware Network (SWAN) wireless LAN framework.
The company said in a statement that its new Aironet 1130AG and 1230AG series of access points will support, as the names imply, both 802.11g and 802.11a. They also are backward compatible with 802.11b, the company said.
A dictionary attack designed to crack the Wi-Fi Protected Access security for wireless LANs has been published by a researcher at ICSA Labs.
Having joined the WiMAX Forum recently, and made no secret of its desire to acquire an 802.16 specialist, Cisco is now having doubts. Its CTO Charles Giancarlo told the Next Generation Networks conference in Boston last week that his company has "not invested in WiMAX" beyond providing backbone infrastructure for potential WiMAX networks in future.
l33tdawg: Tinepeap's page is here.
