One of the most valuable pieces of kit in my mobile hardware collection is my trusty Novatel Wireless 2352 unit that I have been testing for a long time. Novatel sent me a review unit a while ago and goodness me I’ve been putting it through it’s paces. It’s simply fantastic to be able to bring up a wireless hotspot wherever I go.

It’s so good, that I turned to Novatel when I was in New York and needed a decent CDMA data connection. I bought one of Verizon’s branded Novatel units and used it on a pay-as-you-go basis for a week. Super, super, SUPER fast. Faster than my hotel’s fixed line internet connection — a victory for both Novatel and Verizon.

Turns out that a 4G Novatel MiFi unit might not be very far away. This is particularly relevant given that Sprint are busy rolling out 4G in various metropolitan areas across the United States right now. This week, Novatel performed a test with one of their 4G prototype units, thus:

Novatel today announced that it has successfully completed over the air testing of its new MiFi(TM) Intelligent Mobile Hotspot prototype based on 4G-WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). Novatel’s WiMAX implementation immediately achieved throughput of 18Mbps in over-the-air testing and can support theoretical peak throughput speeds exceeding 30Mbps downlink and 10Mbps uplink in a 10 MHz channel.

Good good. More please! I’m looking forward to the point whereby I can actually use a MiFi unit to send a 200mb Mobile Industry Review video up to the web in a couple of seconds.

Then you find yourself in Rome Airport — which, you imagine should have some pretty decent first-world facilities — and then you quickly realise that both Rome Airport and their bollocks provider (something called Alice) can’t quite deliver an envelope, let alone a working wifi connection.

I sat down in the tired 1990s bollocks coffee/restaurant area in the departure gate earlier this afternoon and fully expected to be able to connect to the WiFi with my international Boingo Wireless account.

After a few minutes of grunting at the screen, I recognised that what I was witnessing was a brilliant example of how the press release doesn’t quite match reality.

I’m looking at you, ‘Global Broadband Alliance‘. Apparently since this rubbish ‘Alice‘ zone is affiiliated with the Global Bollocks Alliance, that means that I should also be able to use my Boingo Account. Right?

Yes.

I clicked on the ‘international roaming’ option and Boingo was right there at the top of the list. Good news. I’ve used Boingo all across the planet — particularly in North America.

I clicked and waited — no grunting this time — only smugness. There is a terrific amount of smugness to be had from owning a Boingo account. When you fire up your laptop in an unusual location — hotel, airport, pub, restaurant — you’ll know there’s a Boingo Hotspot quicker than you can say the words ‘reliable infrastructure’, because the software sits in the background. It sits waiting for you to get within 100 paces of a Boingo hotspot — and when that happens, it pops up a little window telling you it’s logging you in. Bish, bash, bosh… fantastic.

You can’t do much with your Boingo Hotspot account when you’re faced with Italy’s finest tired infrastructure. Goodness knows what they’re thinking at Fiumicino Airport.

Here’s what happened.

I clicked on the Boingo Hotspot icon on the ‘Alice Hotspot’ login page.

I waited.

And I waited.

The concept is that you visit that page — authenticate yourself — then the local hotspot should connect you.

Not in Rome. Not in Fiumicino Airport, anyway.

Here’s what you get:

Wait for about 4-5 minutes and the connection times out.

It’s not the Boingo service screwing up. I know this because I’m connected to the internet (still sat in the dire 1990s bright-but-faded ‘cafe’ place) and I’m browsing the Boingo site.

I’m connected using my MiFi unit featuring a UK Vodafone SIM.

I shouldn’t really have to carry the MiFi unit for the purposes of connecting to the internet at an airport, should I?

Fair enough if you’re at a weird hotel somewhere in Europe — yeah — take the MiFi. But at the Airport in Rome, you’d imagine the internet connection would be correctly configured?

I wonder how long it’s been screwed. You’d think that there should be some kind of basic monitoring in place to check the system is working and that folk like me can feed their desire for internet 24 hours a day as necessary.

I daresay that if I opted to buy a 5 EURO one hour access card from ‘Alice’, that would have worked.

But the partner links? Deary me. Bad show, Rome. Bad show, Alice.

C+

I’m amazed that this kind of technology still doesn’t seem to work to a service level.

Meanwhile, if you’re a frequent flyer, I strongly recommend getting hold of a MiFi unit (like the Novatel one I’m using) and/or a Boingo Wireless hotspot account.

So, who’s getting a MiFi unit from Vodafone, then? The above image is from Vodafone Germany, where the MiFi is already available. I understand that UK pricing and availability is also going to be confirmed very soon.

The MiFi is a personal, portable WiFi router that uses a mobile network 3G connection to provide connectivity for up to 5 WiFi enabled devices. Essentially it’s portable broadband for anything with WiFi (iPhone/iPod Touch, laptops, digital cameras etc). The MiFi has been available for a while now on the Verizon network in the US, where it’s been highly praised for being both user friendly and fast!

I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on one of these, especially on Vodafone’s HSDPA network.

If you’re interested in the MiFi, JK On The run has a great review (and pictures) of the Verizon version.

And once again — want to see a video of Ewan playing with the MiFi unit? Here it is.

I’ve heard quite a lot about Boing Wireless, the hotspot service provider. I’ve written about them before, I’ve signed-up to use them now and again and, if memory serves, they knocked me (and an array of other mobile bloggers) a 10-hour free trial for the duration of Mobile World Congress, an action that I thought very, very smart at the time.

My problem is that I spent most of Mobile World Congress this year being professionally stressed-to-hell so I never got a chance to use Boingo.

I now frequently find myself in wifi areas for extended periods of time. For example today I was in San Francisco Airport for about 3 hours then (for the connecting flight) Los Angeles Airport for about 5 hours. They’re covered by T-Mobile’s hotspot service. I’ve signed up for that, but the helpful (i.e. not at all) T-Mobile USA billing system negated to send me my username and password.

So a few weeks ago I paid — I dunno — a tenner or something stupid for 24 hours access to the T-Mobile hotspot in San Francisco Airport.

Then I got home, hunted for Boingo and signed-up with an account.

$9.95 a month buys you access to 100,000 hotspots. Done. Your login details work on anything that has WiFi capabilities. So I took the liberty of downloading Boingo’s clients for my T-Mobile G1 and my iPhone 3G — and of course the desktop client for my Apple.

The Boingo client is brilliant. It simply runs in the background and the moment it detects a compatible network, the window pops up and it logs you in. There’s no need to visit a sodding webpage, select ‘boingo’ and type in your username and password details. The client does it all for you.

The mobile clients work beautifully too. There’s nothing worse than having to fiddle about with your mobile device browser trying to initiate a connection.

If you travel a lot, have a look at Boingo. I’ve been thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying using it.

Boingo are giving away five year-long accounts on their Facebook page if you give them a good enough reason as to why you deserve one. More details on their Twitter feed.

So how does Agito address these challenges? The Agito solution comes in two parts; the RoamAnywhere Mobility Router plus a handset client in the usual flavours – Nokia S60, Windows Mobile, with BlackBerry and iPhone due shortly. Agito’s goal is to keep calls on in-building WiFi when possible and it does this by using location context intelligence to determine when the handset should be using WiFi and when to fallback to cellular coverage. The location context intelligence ‘fingerprints’ the building access locations and combines this with cellsite triangulation to determine the handset’s location and optimise handover between WiFi and 3G/GSM. Hand-off between WiFi and 3G/GSM is achieved in a sub 100ms time frame and is therefore completely transparent to the user. The location awareness also enables optimisation of handset WiFi to maximise battery life – important as WiFi can be a mobile battery killer. In addition to corporate WiFi access points, the handset can use home or public hotspots when available. A neat example of the benefits of location context intelligence is switching on handset WiFi when you walk into your home. In order to optimise cost savings when out of WiFi coverage, the client will route defined call classes, for example international, via the office so they can be least cost routed to their destination. Whilst this all sounds great in theory it does work in practice; Agito has a number of existing deployments in the USA in both businesses and higher education.

What caught my attention with Agito is how they’ve used technology to deliver a simple, Normob friendly, user experience. Users continue to use their handsets as normal and the ‘clever stuff’ is completely transparent to the user. Agito took the view that their service had to deliver a user experience similar to the existing mobile user experience; meaning no additional complexity for the user and WiFi cellular hand-offs as seamless as regular cellular hand-offs. Users are not interested in the wireless technology behind their calls – the service has to just work.

Agito’s solution is a good example of using the best bits of different wireless technologies to deliver a service that addresses the shortcomings of each of the underlying wireless access methods.

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

3G mobile data (and its developments) is good but suffers from issues like flaky coverage, cell capacity constraints and backhaul bottlenecks. Public WiFi has coverage limitations but where it does work it generally delivers decent speeds and consistent service. The lack of roaming agreements between the big service providers is a frustration and I’d like to see a move towards ubiquitous coverage via more service provider co-operation, i.e. if you can find a signal you know you can use it, with service differentiation based around price, and value-adds.

Devicescape recently undertook some research into their user base to understand what WiFi users want from service providers and how people use WiFi. Key findings from the report showed:

• An overwhelming number of WiFi users expect WiFi while on the road (91%)
  
• Most respondents want citywide WiFi (84%) and many are willing to pay for it (56%)
  
• When travelling, the most popular device for accessing WiFi was the smartphone, such as an iPhone (vs.laptops)
  
• The overwhelming majority of smartphone users (81%) prefer using WiFi over 3G for browsing Web sites, downloading data, Google searches and sending e-mail
  
• 86% of respondents want manufacturers to build WiFi into their handsets
  
• 82% of respondents want the service provider to provide an overall 3G/WiFi data package

Whilst this research is focused on existing WiFi users it does show that people who already use WiFi don’t see 3G as an alternative wireless access method but as complementary to WiFi. I’ve blogged about Devicescape before; what they do is make WiFi access simple. Devicescape Easy Wi-Fi automates the hotspot login process to create a seamless user experience. Increasingly, this means Devicescape is hidden from the user and the service provider’s software uses Devicescape to manage the WiFi login process. DeFi Mobile uses this model and makes the hotspot login process fast and automatic. This simplicity addresses what has always been a barrier to simple WiFi use – the login process.

The next step for service providers is to create a completely seamless user experience across both 3G and WiFi. Users should not have to decide themselves which wireless access technology to use. The software should determine whether 3G or WiFi is appropriate. For the 3G service providers it makes sense to ship traffic via WiFi where they can, in order to preserve cell capacity for non WiFi users.

Mobile VoIP is an interesting but potentially very confusing (especially for Normobs) part of the WiFi market, so it’s good to see LowCostMob bringing some clarity here. Comparing mobile VoIP is a bit of a black art because each service provider has a slightly different take on the market and it’s not just a simple matter of comparing tariffs. Users need to compare functionality and features as well as prices to determine which service provider to use. Some clarity here will help to drive progress in this part of the WiFi market.

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

Fresh from sticking WiFi on buses all over the place, they’ve now done a deal with The Green Bus company.

The Green Bus company are, as the press release states, ‘the emerging market leader in school transport thinking in the UK’.

Clearly. If they’re putting WiFi — for free — in their buses. That’s going to certainly make a LOT of friends from the students they’re transporting.

I never took the bus to school. Not once. I always lived just inside the walkable-area. So if I was late, tough. If I hadn’t done some homework, tough. You had to waste a ton of time walking to your doom.

But if you take the bus, it’s binary. You either GET ON the bus. Or you miss it. And if you miss it, then it’s game over for that day. Or you need to try and get a lift from your less-than-impressed-parents.

If you make the Green Bus company bus (who incidentally serve 23 routes across Birmingham), then you’ll still have 10, 20 or 30 minutes worth of time to sod about knocking a piece of rubbish together for your history homework. As every student worth his or her salt knows, DOING some sort of homework, however rubbish — and handing it in — is far better than NOT.

That’s 1,400 children now blessed with the power of internet communications before and after school. It’s, er, not all ‘education’ though.

Let’s hear from Ian Mack, MD at The Green Bus:

“With an increasing number of mobile phones and handhelds supporting Wi-Fi, our investment in Icomera’s Moovbox enables students to check email, surf the web, and play peer-to-peer games on devices like the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS – all free of charge. More importantly, the built-in GPS functionality of the Moovbox means we can see where our buses are at any time; this feature is being made available on our web site where parents and school staff can securely log in and follow the progress of any particular bus is during its journey via a familiar Google Maps display.”

That’s pretty neat — the GPS/Google Maps feature. Like that.

But WiFi on board will be rather useful for today’s connected young’uns.

Here’s what’s on-board:

The Moovbox mobile gateway is a ruggedized Wi-Fi access point and cellular router, offering multiple wide area network (WAN) radios for automatic failover between carriers, and featuring built-in GPS for real-time positioning. Moovbox products also offer secure Ethernet for IP-CCTV, DVR and telematics equipment with remote in-bound access for device control, and supports plug-and-play upgradability to future technologies such as WiMAX and LTE. The multi-user MoovManage service provides real-time device tracking, schedule adherence monitoring, remote device configuration, and Wi-Fi portal and usage statistics. More information is available online at www.icomera.com.

But set your expectations. You won’t be able to download the latest James Bond by torrent on the way to school. These things typically use something like a Vodafone 3G+ card for connectivity — good enough for web browsing and email but will come unstuck if you try and put 2.7GB through it.

I like the innovation though. Good work Icomera. Good thinking, The Green Bus company.

Well Mike Butcher from Techcrunch reports that this has now gone nationwide, with all 130 UK stores set to offer free WiFi by the end of December.

Right on!

For the trip I put a MAXroam SIM in one of my handsets, so instead of paying 25p to send a SMS, MAXroam’s rate was about 17p (MAXroam’s tariff is priced in Euros). Now that the EU has pushed down the cost of voice calls, the MAXroam rate for voice is similar to regular roaming rates but I’m guessing there will be some changes there soon. However outside the EU where roaming rates are (apparently!) subject to market forces, MAXroam is much cheaper, 42p per minute to call a UK landline from the USA compared to 120p roaming via my UK operator.

DeFi Mobile is very cost effective for roaming because its flat rate tariff covers all your calls wherever you are worldwide. A single monthly fee of £23 covers all outbound and inbound calls worldwide, so the additional cost of using DeFi in Budapest was zero. The hotel where the conference was held had excellent DeFi coverage so I was able to use DeFi for almost all my calls. With my regular mobile number forwarded to my DeFi London 020 number I also avoided charges for receiving calls. Working on the basis that I made about 3 hours of calls back to the UK; if I’d used my UK SIM the cost would have been £45. Using DeFi, the additional cost was zero (included in my existing monthly service charge). And that’s not including the saving on calls I received.

What I like about new operators like MAXroam and DeFi is their ability to innovate and offer additional services that add real value to their proposition. Both MAXroam and DeFi offer the ability to add local in-country virtual numbers to your account. As my trip was only for a few days I hadn’t added a Budapest number to either account, however while I was in Budapest I mentioned on Twitter that I was using MAXroam and received a message from Pat Phelan, CEO at MAXroam, asking if I’d like a local number to give out while I was there. Within five minutes it was working (probably less, actually!). Very powerful to be able to simply and easily create a local presence in the locations you’re travelling to for your contacts there to reach you on. MAXroam offers up to 50 additional numbers per SIM card covering 52 different countries so there’s plenty of scope there! Plus, Pat is clearly a top man who goes out of his way to help his customers. This episode also shows the power of Twitter as a medium for communicating with customers and contacts.

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which has been more widely referred to as the “Tube” is all set to hit China, albeit without 3G or Wi-Fi. The lack of 3G may be due to the lack of coverage in China, but there’s hardly any reason to negate the W-Fi on the phone. 

No 3G and no Wi-Fi on a phone running Symbian S60 5th Edition with a full touchscreen front, makes it what, a hollow “Tube” ?

Last week I met up with Dave Fraser and Simon Wynn at Devicescape to talk about their plans for the future. I’ve blogged about Devicescape before – it’s a simple software client that manages WiFi connections for mobile devices across private and public WiFi hotspots. It automates the sign-in process using pre-stored security credentials for secure networks and automatically logs on to authorised private and public hotspots. All major WiFi service providers are supported and smaller ones are being added all the time. I’ve been using Devicescape to manage the WiFi connections on my PCs and handsets for over a year now and with about 10 WiFi devices in the family it saves a lot of time and hassle fiddling about with SSIDs and WPA keys!

Devicescape (the company) has been around for three years and has a background in WiFi security products. The company’s vision is to create a seamless WiFi layer to unify the multiplicity of private and public WiFi networks available to users. Approximately 80% of Devicescape users are using Devicescape on a mobile handset and to date most Devicescape users have downloaded the Devicescape client from the website and configured it themselves. However, as Devicescape’s focus is on simplifying the WiFi access process and customer experience, increasingly the client is invisible to the end user. As an example, DeFi uses Devicescape ‘under the bonnet’ to manage WiFi network access; making the whole process transparent to the user.

Devicescape now comes in four ‘flavours’:

• Locked to one operator – OEM selects, user enters a username and password, works on one network and its roaming partners

• Locked to one operator – user selects the network of their choice

• Locked to one operator – operator provisions device, no user setup required, just works

• Unlocked Devicescape client – premium service, enabled by Subscription Service

More and more operators are seeing 3G and WiFi as complementary technologies and Devicescape partners are starting to use the client to load balance across 3G and WiFi networks. To reduce the data overhead on the 3G network, traffic is seamlessly routed over WiFi when available. Because Devicescape automates the WiFi network selection and login process, it creates a seamless user experience.

Is there anything missing from Devicescape? The one piece of functionality I would like to see is the ability for a user to prioritise the order of login to networks on the unlocked client. Prioritisation is currently set by Devicescape and applies to all users. This is based on prioritising the most cost effective networks to use, so it uses your home WiFi before a paid for one. However I’d like to be able to prioritise private access points as I sometimes have more than one running and need to control which is used.

I’ve just had an email from Devicescape confirming that Devicescape is now in the Apple Store so it’ll be going on my son’s new iPod Touch later this week!

Why’s that so interesting? Although technologically, the Wi-Fi at the Terminal 5 offers nothing out of the extraordinary, it gets the credit for being T-Mobile’s largest Wi-Fi hotspot in the UK. It is so big, that I had to walk whole 50 football pitches to compare it with. T-Mobile also offers its Wi-Fi services at the other terminals at the Heathrow airport.

To be able to use the services, given that you are NOT a customer, T-Mobile charges £5 for one hour’s access or yo can pay just £10 for a whole 24 hours. Regular users can purchase a monthly subscription at £20 per month. Yes, they take credit cards too.

I’ve been using Devicescape for a while now on my Nokia E51 and it dramatically improves the WiFi user experience. So what is Devicescape? It’s a free application that runs on your mobile device and automatically logs you in to WiFi networks without the need to enter ID and security credentials each time. This includes your own WiFi networks, free hotspots, your subscription hotspots and your friends’ networks, where they’ve agreed to share their network with you. Free networks are automatically available with no need to open a Devicescape account.

The ability to share networks is a unique feature that lets your friends (buddies) use your network without you having to give them your network’s WPA or WEP security details. The risk with handing this information over directly is that you never know where it might end up but Devicescape ensures that you know exactly who has access to your network and you can easily restrict access in the future if you want to. The one thing to remember here is that you must share your network details whilst your friend is connected to the Internet elsewhere so Devicescape can update the authorised networks ready for when the connection is made to your network. By sharing networks with each other you build up a community of networks.

All the family’s PCs use Devicescape to connect to our home network and others. My principal use of Devicescape on my Nokia E51 is to login to WiFi networks for Truphone. I’ve got a number of private WiFi networks plus a subscription service and automatic access to free networks set up in my Devicescape profile. When I move into an available hotspot, Truphone triggers an automatic Devicescape WiFi logon and then Truphone connects. The whole process is seamless and avoids the need to type in security keys on the handset or go through browser logins.

The Devicescape web portal provides a simple dashboard for managing your networks, your devices and your buddies. Changes made via the portal are propagated out to the devices when they update their networks.

There are two acid tests for software for me. Does it do what it says and what’s the support like for technical issues? Devicescape certainly does what it says it will do and better still it does it seamlessly. Devicescape provides support via online forums and when I’ve raised queries via the forums they’ve always been picked up fairly swiftly. The quality of support has been excellent and included new versions of the software to resolve specific issues.

Is there anything missing? I’ve had a number of discussions around the ability to prioritise connections to personal networks. I sometimes have more than one wireless SSID available at home and would like to be able to manage access without removing one from Devicescape. However, because Devicescape is all about providing seamless and cost effective WiFi access, where there are two or more free personal networks available there is no facility to prioritise connections. I’d like to see this implemented in a future release, as an option for users who regularly have simultaneous access to multiple personal networks.

Devicescape currently has versions of the software for the following platforms – Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X, iPhone and iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, Nokia Tablet, Nokia S60 and Linksys WIP300.

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

]]> http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/08/jonathan_jensen_on_thursday_devicescape_on_your_mobile.html/feed 0 http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/08/st_pancras_station_now_offers_free_wifi.html http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/08/st_pancras_station_now_offers_free_wifi.html#comments Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:30:05 +0000 Ewan http://www.smstextnews.com/?p=7912 Mobile Industry Review reader Chris knocked me this news over this morning. He was checking out a story on ISP Review about St Pancras Station’s new free WiFi offering. It’s one of the key London stations now that the EuroStar terminal is based there.

The St Pancras website carries this info:

Right on!

The back end is managed by CitySpace. Who, I suspect, aren’t on the Christmas card list of the existing WiFi providers such as The Cloud.

What next for The Cloud when folk are giving away WiFi?

The move by St Pancras makes perfect, perfect sense. The shops, in particular, will get a lot more business from the passing trade, I imagine. You need somewhere to sit, afterall, right? And, whilst you’re checking your mail, that double chocolate muffin does look pretty tempting.

Hope you’re well. Great stuff going on at SMSTextNews. Still enjoying it hugely. Love the vodcast (is that the right word?!).

Just wanted to flag up something I stumbled across while looking for a new router which might appeal to SMSTN audience. It’s a Draytek model with a USB port that allows you to plug in your HSDPA modem and use that as either primary or backup net connection (along with the usual ADSL). Cool. In theory then, as long as you could find power, you could create a portable wi-fi network pretty much anywhere. It costs less than 200 quid and has VOIP prioritisation to boot. It gets very strong reviews too.

http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2820.html

I’ve never seen anything like this discussed on the site, so I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I thought your dongle-dangling audience might be as fascinated as I was! I’m on the brink of ordering the 2820Vn…

In case it’s of interest…

Muchos, muchos interest Mark. Nice one. Has anyone tried out the 2820Vn? It’s a smart idea to include USB dongle support. Indeed I wonder if some of mobile operators would consider selling the device along with their dongles?

I’m sitting here testing out a Nokia E66 (expect the review later this week), and I’m looking at the Maps function, and amusing myself at having Facebook on my phone. And I’m angry, at two things; that poor excuse of “speed”, and the ridiculousness of the cost.

I would have used WLAN, but I don’t have access to it, so instead I just used the £10 I topped up with half an hour ago, with an Orange pre-pay SIM. I’m sitting here now, and I am back to zero credit. I barely used the thing; I logged onto Facebook, and it got too slow so I gave-up. Then I thought I would try out Nokia Maps – it looks cool right? – WRONG! It’s too slow, and it ate up my credit!

This mobile, which is expensive to say the least, a business model, designed for those who require constant connectivity, and yet it lacks such a basic function as WiFi. And instead, I’m charged for the privilege of the slowest internet ever – ten pounds in thirty minutes!

Nokia Maps is a joke too. I got as far as seeing the M25, and half of London. I don’t want to see half of London, I want to see my current position, hence why I set it to that; but no. Apparently, that takes ten minutes, and £10 to do so.

Ahh!

I’m shocked, and also angry. How can networks get away with charging that much for an extremely slow and terribly unresponsive service as that? But also, I know you’re thinking “You should have known better you ignorant little girl”, and in all honesty, I should have known better, I know. I remember wasting my credit on Virgin Mobile years ago just trying to read the news whilst out and about. I knew that it would be eaten up, but half an hour, for ten pounds?

I’m appalled right now, angry, frustrated, and wondering how networks can get away with it. Isn’t OFCOM meant to be regulating this type of thing? Plus, the internet is a standard to the majority for their lives and work; so it should still be reserved for the super-rich, or contract payers.

And this is why I want WiFi. There are loads of Hotspots around London, and more being added all around other cities in the country. Plus there is new technology like WiMAX, which has a radius of thirty miles. That could pretty much cover the whole of my area easily. I don’t expect them all to be free, but even the ones you have to pay for, there is no way you’ll be charged £10 for thirty minutes, and you get better speeds too.

So to the mobile industry, I’m disgusted. I could just about comprehend the stupid rates you charge about three years ago, or more, but now? You honestly think you have a right to charge me that much for the slowest, most unreliable connection I have ever had the misery of using? You’re wrong!

And to Nokia, Sony (sorry Ewan, I know you don’t like them), Samsung, and all the others; make more phones that are WiFi compatible for the nornobs like myself, and for the business users too. Not only will the internet function be more used by the normobs, but it’ll probably progress into better levels and versions (like a web 2.0 for mobile), because there is more use.

I’m going to write to Orange and ask why it cost me so much, because I can guarantee you now, it didn’t cost them £10 to supply me with that miserable service!

Always dependable, always fresh and numerous, particularly across the city of London here in the UK.

I was in their shop munching away yesterday when I noticed they had a little sign on my table announcing that they were offering free WiFi — much along the same lines as McDonalds are, with The Cloud providing the back end infrastructure.

This is great news.

So now whenever you’re thinking WiFi, think McDonalds, Coffee Republic and Pret A Manger!

1. 10,000?
2. 100,000?
3. 1,000,000

Actually, it’s none of the above. We got news this morning that iPhone and iPod Touch users have already downloaded over 10 million apps.

Whilst Apple hasn’t stated just what proportion of this 10m downloads are made up from the 200 free ones (including Facebook, AIM and German phrasebooks) either way, 10 million is more than 90 per minute.

Crash Bandicoot and Super Monkey Ball may be worth £5.99 but somehow I doubt many people will pay even £1.19 for noughts & crosses (Tic-Tac-Touch).

Still, if you’re looking to develop a widget for Facebook, it might be worth generating something for the iPhone at the same time.

A little from the release:

Many of these amazing new applications take advantage of iPhone’s large display, Multi-Touch(TM) user interface, fast hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, built-in accelerometer and location-based technology to bring far more powerful applications to the mobile arena than ever before.

The App Store on iPhone works over cellular networks and Wi-Fi, which means it is accessible from just about anywhere, so users can purchase and download applications wirelessly and start using them instantly. Applications are free or charged to the user’s iTunes(R) account and the App Store notifies the user when updates are available for their apps. The App Store is also available in iTunes (http://www.itunes.com/) running on a Mac(R) or PC, which syncs applications to the iPhone or iPod touch using a USB cable.

The deal with Boingo means that you can sign in and pay for usage without having to have a contract with Alltel. The rates are $19.99 for a month and $3.99 for one day’s usage. Or if you are an Alltel customer you can subscribe to the Internet Anywhere Bundle for $69.98 per month which gives you Mobile Internet and access to the Wi-Fi hotspots.

Angela Rittgers, director of product marketing at Alltel described the Internet Anywhere Bundle as “a common-sense approach to network connectivity.”

I was walking past the McDonalds in Oxford Street, at the Oxford Circus, when I saw a ‘Free WiFi’ sticker. I’ve walked by a few other restaurants recently and been surprised by the amount of folk sat in there munching away on a Big Mac with their laptops out, browsing the web, clearly using BT Openzone or similar.

This has taken my by surprise. The last time I was in a McDonalds trying to get WiFi, it was paid-for and didn’t work (the joys of a Hartlepool existence). So things have moved on, big time. It’s an excellent move and something I’ll need to add to my consciousness whenever I want fast data.

Check out the McDonalds site for the restaurant locator:

The greatest benefit will be to those using Truphone’s flat pricing (3p to landlines, 15p to mobiles) structure for international calling to supported countries (some locations such as the USA are 3pm for all calls) who can now access it from any location with a GSM signal, but either mechanism can be selected via the client for other calls too, for example to reduce high per minute charges on pre-pay tariffs. Local numbers and similar pricing benefits are available to users in all the countries Truphone operates in.

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This is an evolutionary step for Truphone – it’s the same mechanism a number of other providers already use (including the iSkoot-provided Skypephone service from 3 and RebTel’s local dial-though service) although packaged nicely for those able to run the client. However it makes sense to eliminate one of the current major criticisms that a WiFi or battery-munching 3G signal was required.

The client is available to download (existing users log-in and select the option to re-download the client from the account management page) and initial testing showed it to be as slick and easy as ever both in installation and use – I’m still amazed at the audio quality that can be achieved over 3G, but that might not be something to use regularly unless you have a particularly understanding network operator…

The next major step will be for Truphone to take advantage of their recent Sim4Travel aquisition and launch their own virtual operator issuing its own SIMs and enabling roaming data – something we’re eagerly anticipating and is promised soon.

ANARCHY!

Yes! I am now officially never using a wireless hotspot again. Not unless I have a stupidly crazy business critical need to do so.

I am sat in the M&S Moto service station outside Reading (that’s pronounced “Redding” for our international users, not ‘Reading’ as in “I’m reading a book”). I am waiting for the ridiculous traffic on the M4 motorway to subside so I popped in here after leaving Vodafone to check email and fuel up.

Obviously I was planning on using a wireless hotspot. I took one look at the uninspiring Moto wireless offer (five quid for an hour) and the T-Mobile one and thought, “No.”

No. That’s it. No need. We move on. What IS the point of paying twenty quid a month or crazy prices per hour when you can get a 3 USB mobile broadband stick for a tenner a month? Or a Vodafone one for 15 quid a month?

The fact that these services now actually work reliably should most definitely encourage providers of wifi hotspots to seriously evaluate their business models. I most certainly am not smiling politely at the owners of this Moto service station for flogging WiFi at me and I won’t be going out of my way to drop off at any of their other properties unless I absolutely need to as a result.

There’s definitely still a market for professionally managed services — I’m thinking iPass or Boingo — and I am still holding on to my The Cloud hotspot service for the time being. But now, when I’m UK-based, I will most definitely be using mobile broadband.