If you haven’t come across them, Boingo is the world’s largest network of WiFi hotspots. I use them regularly, especially when I’m abroad. They’re great with airports, hotels, coffee shops and so on. I particularly like the way their laptop software automatically logs you in — and it’s reasonably convenient to use on the iPhone. Just a few taps and you’re done, provided you’re in a Boingo zone. There are 325,000 hotspots worldwide.

I have the big plan. The crazy price one. £39 a month (or $59) that gives me 2,000 minutes per month of access. Fundamentally, I have a serious problem paying for ‘minutes’ but I understand that this is often the easiest way to make the economics work when Boingo undoubtedly has to pay ‘network access fees’ of some sort to *some* hotspots.

To put this in context, however, I think I’m committed to spend £40 per month on my primary Vodafone contract, per month. So spending a similar amount on JUST a Boingo account does make my face display all sorts of pained looks whenever I think about it.

But I don’t.

That’s my strategy.

I don’t think about it. I do the equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling “LA LA LA LA” loudly. That helps me forget the stupid price and the stupid business model.

I just don’t like paying for minutes. I don’t think anybody does. I’d rather have a flat fee. And frankly, I’d rather it was LESS money. But I want to use the service on both my laptop(s) and my mobile devices. So I lump it.

And I forget about it.

Until, that is, I get these kinds of emails.

Last week I got a note telling me I was approaching my 2,000 minute limit.

Today it seems I screwed that limit.

Have a read:

So here’s my problem: I hopped on to the Boingo site to see what I can do about this problem.

Because, you see, it’s now a PROBLEM.

Now I’ve got to DO something about it.

Now it’s a flipping faaaking exception that I need to manage.

As if I don’t have enough to deal with.

There are other plans you can buy.

To my knowledge I’ve bought the biggest one. Part of the logic there is so that I don’t get this exception shit. I just don’t want to have to manage it. Not when it’s costing the SAME as a good domestic mobile service plan.

I prepared myself for the arse-ache involved in having to upgrade my service plan.

Turns out I can’t.

I’m off to Baltimore next week and I do plan to use the Boingo service. Only, since my account is SUSPENDED……..

I’ve just spent the last 5 minutes hunting around the Boingo site looking for the PAY US MORE FLIPPING MONEY button. That’s what I was intending to do.

Yes I’ve already blown £40. I don’t have a problem with that. I used all the minutes. There was no fraud. I just happened to leave my laptop ON for hours on end when I was in Germany. I did that. Eyes open. No issue. I just didn’t expect to be punished for it.

By all means suspend the account. That’s excellent practice for folk who don’t want to spend any more money.

Me on the other hand? I need the flipping utility.

So what am I supposed to do?

I login. I look for the ‘upgrade’ button. No button.

Why can’t I buy an extra 1,000 minutes?

I have even considered buying ANOTHER account so I don’t have to deal with the flipping exceptions.

I’m at a loss to what to do.

I write this text as an illustration — a real time illustration — of user frustration, not just for Boingo’s ears (or eyes) but for the marketplace.

Could we possibly, possibly consider avoiding suspending folks’ accounts? Or, actually — what I mean to say is, by all means apply a suspension (I understand why this is relevant, good and proper), but RIGHT FLIPPING NEXT TO IT, add a button that says “UNSUSPEND” or “UPGRADE” or “TEMPORARILY GIVE US A LOAD MORE MONEY”.

I’d have done that this evening. Anything to avoid having to wake up to the reality of the amount of cash the service costs.

Now, though, I hit the wall. I woke up from the “LA LA LA LA LA” dream, dumbfounded that there appears to be no easy fix.

Now I have to sit there in flipping silence at Baltimore Airport with my arms folded because SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE at the Boingo offices decided that 2,000 minutes should be enough for anyone in a 30-day period.

Right then. To the subject of this post. Are there any alternatives you’d suggest?

I keep on hearing about iPass. I keep on thinking I need to actually, actually knuckle-down and actually look at it properly. Is there anything else I am missing?

Or, actually, should I just use my Abroadband service instead as a Boingo replacement? My 3 MiFi unit doesn’t work in the States so I’d need to upgrade that, but I’ve no issue doing so. I just haven’t bothered as Boingo has usually kept me happy enough.

I’d welcome your suggestions.

Today’s industry expert is Ben Wilson, UK Country Manager for Xirrus, the leader in high performance WiFi equipment and services. (That’s Ben above).  He heads up the British operations for the company and kindly sent over these answers to my questions.

Right then, let’s get started! (My questions are in bold)

- – - – -

What’s the best way of guaranteeing brilliant, seamless WiFi service at a PR launch for 100 users?

Ben Wilson: Very simple – Make sure that there are enough WiFi radios available on non-interfering channels to allow connectivity for that number of users – primarily use the 5GHz band as it offers far greater density to more available channels. Also make sure that the intelligence of the WiFi network (i.e. the data plane and processing power) is at the edge where the users are – just like in a switch. Many WiFi systems use a centralised controller with all of the intelligence at the centre of the network. This introduces a single point of failure and creates a bottleneck for the traffic. High Density, High Performance WiFi need in this type of environment needs multiple radio architecture with the intelligence at the edge of the network.  It’s very simple maths and physics. More Radios = more bandwidth. More bandwidth = more supported users.

Now, factor that up to 10,000 or 20,000 people at a huge exhibition?  What kind of technology is needed to support that?

Ben Wilson: Well consider how the Cell Phone industry conquered this. They had similar problems with needing to expand coverage and capacity form a system initially designed as an overlay to landlines. Once Mobile phones became prominent and they needed to ramp up the ability to connect more users, host more calls and deliver data services but only having a limited number of channels in the spectrum to play with, they moved to a multiple radio with directional antenna model. Just look at a modern mobile phone mast. Multiple radios using directional antennas to allow more non-interfering radios in the air to support more users. This is exactly what the WiFi industry has started to face for several years and the only people who solve this density issue is Xirrus with the WiFi Array. The unit contains 4, 8 12 or 16 radios combined with multiple directional antennas, a multi-gigabit switch with the intelligence at the edge of the network in each device. This is what allows us to deliver 1000’s of users simultaneously in conference facilities.

What kind of technical considerations are required when you’re dealing with multi-room or huge venues like Earls Court or big, big hotels that might need connectivity on multiple floors?

Ben Wilson: The big challenge to overcome with WiFi is the amount of available non-interfering channels. In 802.11bg (2.4GHZ) there are just 3. In 802.11a (5GHz) there are about 20 usable in the UK. Once a WiFi radio detects interference it shuts off, as WiFi (unlike wired networks) is a collision avoidance technology rather than collision detection. This means that interference immediately starts to halve the available bandwidth and double the latency. By using a directional antenna system it becomes a reality to be able to avoid interference and get more non-interfering radios in the air, allowing more users to connect.

Once you’ve managed to assign and log a user on to a WiFi network, what’s the best way to assure brilliant internet connectivity?  Is it just a matter of a big, big data pipe?  The bigger the better?

Ben Wilson: Let’s do the math – the bigger the data pipe, the more available bandwidth for the users. That simple.

Is there a functional limit for the amount of people that you can get connected to a single WiFi network?

BEN WILSON: If designed properly, and using the right equipment it is possible to scale to tens of thousands of users.  In theory, each radio can handle up to 64 users, though most would recommend around 20 power users per radio.  So it really becomes a matter of the number of people to determine the number of radios.  This again is where 5GHz comes into play – it offers 7X more channels of 2.4GHz.  More channels = more radios = more users supported.

Do you have any suggestions for a rule of thumb in terms of data consumption?  e.g. 1 user consumes 200mb WiFi internet data in a day, therefore 100 users would need 20gb bandwidth in total.  And what kind of backhaul pipe is needed for a decent service?  Does ‘fast broadband’ from the likes of BT cut it in this arena? Or should we be talking super-fast dedicated connectivity?

Ben Wilson: This is the wrong way to look at this. Total data over a day is irrelevant – it’s the amount of bandwidth per second per user is generally a good starting point as that is how your data pipe connectivity is measured. If you have 1000 concurrent users, stats and experience show that a max of 50% will be demanding bandwidth at any one time. Let’s say that for general email and internet use you decide to give them a solid 1mbps each. That’s 500 Mbps of bandwidth.  In most hotels and smaller conference centre, there are generally only about 50 users needing bandwidth at the same time, so dependent on the capacity and the venue depends on what kind of internet you need.

In reality, is it just too expensive to do this properly to serve, say, 5,000 or 10,000 delegates?

Ben Wilson: Quite simply – no. In the past with centralised architectures and lightweight AP’s then the cost of the cabling and the management and the ongoing interference problems and hassles made for an expensive layout for kit, installation and ongoing training and maintenance. With a fully distributed architecture and multiple directional antennas, with the intelligence at the edge, Xirrus requires 75% fewer cable runs, switch ports and devices to deliver this kind of solution. Selecting Xirrus makes this viable. Look at Microsoft – we served there roughly 3,000 concurrent users on just 12 devices with still plenty of head room – We could have had 2 to 3X more than that.

What are the main ‘gotchas’ that result in event organisers being harassed by frustrated users?

Ben Wilson: Poor design and implementation leading to lack of available bandwidth. Using products designed as an overlay rather than designed form the ground up for high density deployments and to replace wired switches a cause massive problems for users as they all try to log on.

Do you have any brief case studies or examples you could share where the technology has really worked?

We have several examples at http://www.xirrus.com/customerdeployments/hospitality.php
Microsoft Events: http://www.xirrus.com/customerdeployments/microsoftevents.php
Interop Las Vegas: http://www.xirrus.com/customerdeployments/interoplv09.php

What would your equipment/service shopping list look like to deliver WiFi to 500 or 10,000 delegates?

Ben Wilson: Let’s discuss what you want to do, how you want to perform, what devices you’ll be supporting, the existing RF environment and we can put something together. For a 500 user WiFi Network, you’re looking at around the 10k GBP mark.

Take a gaze into the future: What should we be looking for in the future to deliver this kind of connectivity?

Ben Wilson: No need to look at the future. As Microsoft and Interop prove, we can do this right now.

- – - – -

Ben, that’s fantastic, thank you for taking the time to answer.  They will be really useful to many of the readers.

If you’d like to talk to Ben and his team at Xirrus, drop them a note — you can find all the details at http://www.xirrus.com/uk/.

Today’s industry expert is Scott Reeves, Technical Director, EMEA, for Ruckus Wireless.  That’s him above. Scott knows a thing or two about WiFi. He has over 15 years of sales, engineering and management experience in the high technology and networking industries. Prior to joining Ruckus he lead the Neoteris European Engineering team, taking No1 market share in SSL VPN, (now part of Juniper). Before Juniper he was the sales engineering director (EMEA) for Alteon WebSystems where he supported the development and growth of the business to a run rate of over 60 million USD per year and No1 market share. Scott’s experience includes positions with Alcatel, Nortel Networks and Madge networks.

Right then, let’s get started.  My questions are in bold.

- – -

What’s the best way of guaranteeing brilliant, seamless WiFi service at a PR launch for 100 users?

Scott Reeves: One dual-band 802.11n access point (AP) could easily support 100 concurrent users, but to guarantee brilliant, seamless Wi-Fi, you really need to think about the bandwidth requirements for your launch.  One AP could provide anywhere between 40 and 200MB throughput to 200 concurrent users depending on the devices being used to access the network, so realistically between one and three APs should be more than enough to support any sort of PR launch for 100 users.

Now, factor that up to 10,000 or 20,000 people at a huge exhibition?  What kind of technology is needed to support that?

Scott Reeves: If you’re expecting 10,000 or even 20,000 people to attend a huge exhibition, you can also be fairly sure that not all of them will be accessing the wireless network at the same time.  If you think about the WOMAD festival that took place at the end of July, the event attracted some 40,000 visitors, but there were never more than 500 concurrent users on the Wi-Fi network, with around 2,000 unique users in total.  Traffic on the guest network never exceeded the 100MB backhaul connection.

At the WOMAD festival, we were able to guarantee reliable Wi-Fi access for both guests and organisers using 35 APs positioned at various points throughout the 350 acre site, with more near the main stage and in other densely populated areas. This meant that each AP had to support no more than 100 users at any given time – with the back-up, that it could scale to support 200 users during peak times.  Load balancing like this is key to ensuring that no single AP becomes overloaded and impacts on the user experience.  Another factor to consider is RF management – using beamforming technology, it is simple to maximise throughput from each AP and minimise the impact of interference from neighbouring devices.

What kind of technical considerations are required when you’re dealing with multi-room or huge venues like Earls Court or big, big hotels that might need connectivity on multiple floors?

Scott Reeves: When installing Wi-fi networks in multi-room or huge venues like Earls Court, the most important thing to get right is RF management. Using technology like Ruckus BeamFlex, you can make sure you’re using the RF energy as efficiently as possible, and ensure that you’re not wasting energy by transmitting it in all directions.  What’s more with a network covering multiple floors, you also need to make sure APs from neighbouring floors are not causing interference for each other. You’ll also need a controller to coordinate all the APs and ensure seamless roaming between them.

Another key consideration when building Wi-Fi networks for exhibitions at the likes of Earls Court, is being able to see, track down and mitigate any analogue noise before it has chance to cause interference and problems.

Once you’ve managed to assign and log a user on to a WiFi network, what’s the best way to assure brilliant internet connectivity?  Is it just a matter of a big, big data pipe?  The bigger the better?

Scott Reeves: The size of the pipe is obviously important when designing a Wi-Fi network, but you also need to think about air time fairness, rate limiting and traffic prioritisation.  No matter what size the pipe is, without these tools, there will always be one or two users that take up all the bandwidth, causing a detrimental knock-on effect for others on the network.  At WOMAD for example, there was a 100MB pipe, and each AP was capable of transmitting at 20MB/s. That’s 10GB potential capacity from the Wi-Fi network in total – theoretically more than the pipe can provide.  Rate limiting and air time fairness helped to ensure the throughput on the Wi-Fi network remained in line with that available on the backhaul, thereby guaranteeing brilliant internet connectivity for all.

Is there a functional limit for the amount of people that you can get connected to a single WiFi network?

Scott Reeves: There’s not really a limit to the number of people that can access a single Wi-Fi network at any given time. If you think about it, one of the most compact environments you’d find yourself in is a sports stadium and even in these types of venues, it’s just a matter of adding more APs to support the number of visitors. We’ve built networks of more than 30,000 APs that support hundreds of thousands of users.

Do you have any suggestions for a rule of thumb in terms of data consumption?  e.g. 1 user consumes 200mb WiFi internet data in a day, therefore 100 users would need 20gb bandwidth in total.  And what kind of backhaul pipe is needed for a decent service?  Does ‘fast broadband’ from the likes of BT cut it in this arena? Or should we be talking super-fast dedicated connectivity?

Scott Reeves: There’s not really a limit to the number of people that can access a single Wi-Fi network at any given time. If you think about it, one of the most compact environments you’d find yourself in is a sports stadium and even in these types of venues, it’s just a matter of adding more APs to support the number of visitors. We’ve built networks of more than 30,000 APs that support hundreds of thousands of users.

In reality, is it just too expensive to do this properly to serve, say, 5,000 or 10,000 delegates?

Scott Reeves: Not at all.  Realistically, not everyone is going to be connected all at once – we tend to find that around ten percent of users connect to a network at any given time, so the task of serving 10,000 delegates isn’t as daunting in reality as it initially sounds.

What’s more, it can actually be detrimental for venues not to invest in good Wi-Fi coverage.  In the hospitality sector in particular, the provision of flawless Wi-Fi is key to retaining old customers and attracting new ones.  The cost of installing a Wi-Fi network can soon be offset by the amount of business it helps venues to win and retain.

What are the main ‘gotchas’ that result in event organisers being harassed by frustrated users?

Scott Reeves: Users often get frustrated with Wi-Fi networks that don’t provide them with enough capacity, signal coverage or throughput.  You’ve got to strike a balance between all the components that make up a network to deliver the best service – for example, there’s no point having enough backhaul to support your needs if you don’t have enough IP addresses or Wi-Fi coverage to go around.

Bad network planning can often trip people up too – poorly positioned APs cause unnecessary amounts of RF signal noise and more often than not lead to spotty coverage.  Our new ZonePlanner tool is helping to take the guesswork out of wireless LAN design, making it easy for network managers to quickly and accurately plan, design, deploy and manage Ruckus ZoneFlex APs.

Do you have any brief case studies or examples you could share where the technology has really worked?

Scott Reeves: We recently installed a state of the art 802.11n Wireless LAN (WLAN) system at the HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg, which is one of the Germany’s largest stadiums with 57,000 seats.  The new network is ideally suited to provide rapid user access to Deutsche Telecom’s T-Mobile service, bypassing the 3G network altogether.

Ruckus has also provided high-performance mesh networks at the WOMAD festival in Wiltshire for the past two years.  The network supported some 40,000 festival-goers each year and also provided reliable connectivity for voice over Wi-Fi calls, chip-and-pin transactions and general internet access.

What would your equipment/service shopping list look like to deliver WiFi to 500 or 10,000 delegates?

Scott Reeves: To serve 10,000 users, you’d need a Ruckus ZoneDirector 3200 to manage around 160 dual band 11n 7363 APs – the total cost for this equipment would be in the region of 100,000 USD.  That works out at a cost of just 10 USD per user – which theoretically offers an incredibly fast time to revenue.  For example, in a large hotel where guests pay ten USD per day for Wi-Fi services, it would only take around ten weeks at just ten percent occupancy before you start seeing ROI.

Take a gaze into the future: What should we be looking for in the future to deliver this kind of connectivity?

Scott Reeves: Higher speed Wi-Fi devices are the way of the future – we’re expecting to see 450MB devices coming out within a year or so.  In a few years’ time, it will be expected for Wi-Fi to run at speeds of 1GB/s.

- – -

Brilliant!

Thank you for taking the time to respond, Scott.  Your answers will be of real, real help to readers — and to any event managers/venue owners hunting for the right way to do things.

If you’ve got further questions, or if you’d like to get hold of one of those Ruckus ZoneDirectors, talk to the team at Ruckus.

Mobile Monday Silicon Valley was fantastic this evening. There was a huge turnout on an uncharacteristically rainy San Francisco evening for the Location-Aware app demo evening.

Skyhook Wireless kindly underwrote the bar and gave a pitch at the beginning of the series of presentations, outlining their rather excellent range of location services available to mobile developers. I managed to catch Skyhook’s Director of Marketing, Kate Imbach, on camera discussing the merits of their offering. Suffice to say if you’re a developer and you’d like to integrate location based services (e.g. Find Me) into your app, definitely, definitely talk to Skyhook.

Here are the companies who presented:

• Crazymenu.com – Launched their iPhone (lunchtime) online restaurant discovery and ordering facility. I really liked their concept. I’m going to look for it in the iPhone app store.
• Cristdrive – Their application, Voilà, will simply and elegantly tell any of your online services where you are, right now. $0.99 in the app store.
• Retronyms – Couldn’t make it for some reason so Kate from Skyhook did her best with their presentation. They’ve got a rather interesting GPS game by the name of Seek ‘n Spell going live. Check their site.
• Wertago – Showed off their app offering city nightlife in the palm of your hand. Nice!
• Geoterrestrial – GPSToday, a comprehensive Windows Mobile application offering an array of GPS related services. If you’re into location services, definitely check out what they’ve created — amongst other features, it’ll sit in the background and continually tell folk where you are.
• HearPlanet – Dale Larson’s audio city guides deliver location information that really speaks to you. You can, as the site puts it, ‘leave those bulky tour books behind and let HearPlanet (iPhone) show you the way. Get it on the App Store. It’s the #2 rated Travel app at the moment and they’ve had almost 500k downloads so far.
• Life360 – Trades on fear. But in a good way. Their mobile (and desktop) services deliver you instant safety, security and peace of mind. I’m going to get this for my wife and I. Google Latitude helps show where we both are.. but I want more than that. I particularly like their ‘find your family in an emergency’ facilities.
• Carrrmatey by Lionebra –> Brought the house down. So much so that I filmed their pitch. I think the audience were really taken with the pirate theme. It’s a really smart utility that records where you left your car, reminds you to return at appointed times (for meters) and guides you back to your car — rather useful if you keep on forgetting where you parked.

I managed to get some good video interviews tonight — I was going to hold them back until we’ve launched with the nice new look and feel, but it’s al about content, right? I’m going to aim to get the first lot of videos up tomorrow morning.

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Mobile Tron is Matthew Bennett’s inaugural mobile event for San Francisco and it’s taking place this Thursday at a rather swish design gallery art space (”Receiver Design”). The Facebook event is here and you’re welcome to come along if you’re into mobile and you’ve got something to say.

I’m taking the camera equipment along so if you’d like to get on camera for Mobile Developer TV (the launch is coming shortly), come along.

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I was about to write a shocking you-will-not-believe-it piece about the RCR Wireless coverage of SpinVox. I got their newsletter this afternoon and saw red when they took their hatchet to the voicemail-to-text service. I think the fundamentally misunderstood the point of SpinVox, commenting that it often spells transcribed words incorrectly and isn’t that good with ’3 minute messages’. You can see the vid and accompanying piece here.

But that’s not relevant any more. RCR Wireless has ceased trading!

Dear me.

I haven’t really come across RCR much — apart from seeing their Show Daily at CTIA, if memory serves. RCR are — were — very much US-focused from what I could make of it.

But that’s it. Here’s a screenshot of the announcement:

It reads:

RCR Wireless News has suspended publication of its print and online products immediately and is closing operations. Unfortunately, the market for RCR’s products has been hit particularly hard by the global financial meltdown.

“RCR Wireless News was passionately run by first-class people and it pains us to make this move but the economy gives us no other choice,” said Crain Communications Chairman Keith E. Crain. To contact Crain, e-mail Colleen Robar at crobar@crain.com

Here’s the link to the announcement.

It looks to me like this was a bit of a surprise. For example, I was reading about the controlled-demise of the Rocky Mountain News last week — they announced it in advance, set a date for closure and so on.

This note from RCR looks like it might have come as a shock.

Deary me. Every success in the future to those associated with the company.

Ionut is looking to monetise the mobile application he developed. It’s called SmartCam and it turns a mobile phone with wifi/bluetooth and camera into a wireless PC webcam.

The project is open source and available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartcam.

Here’s a screenshot:

Although there’s a GPL license available for SmartCam, Ionut is keen to hear from operators, handset manufacturers or any one else interested in doing business with him.

SmartCam is available for Symbian and J2ME/Java — along with Linux and Windows clients.

If this triggers a thought in your mind and you’d like to talk with Ionut, drop me a note — ewan@mobileindustryreview.com — and I’ll connect you.

Hitting the stores this week is T-Mobile’s answer to 3′s wireless broadband mobile router, the mouth full that is the Mobile Broadband Share Dock

It works the same way as 3′s Huawei D100 Router, only with a less catchy name. The Share Dock plugs into their mobile broadband dongle, then enables surrounding devices to have ‘net access over its WIFI signal.

Seeing as the T-mobile HSDPA network is shared by 3, you’d have thought this product would have been out there first. The D100 has now had over a month or so advantage to gain its foothold in the marketplace.

How they both balance against each other in costs is of an interest. The T-Mobile offering arrives free on an 18 month contract, at £20 per month for connectivity.

On the 3 offering you have to buy the router at £69.99. On top of that still having to get the mobile broadband dongle plus whatever contract suits your needs. T-mobile bundles in with the Mobile Broadband Share Dock their dongle, creating a more rounded package.

The other consideration to take into mind is their fair usage policy. T-mobile has stipulated it will only be a 3GB data allowance, where 3 have a 5GB on a £15 18 month contract to match their D100.

All told over that 18 month period 3′s deal would come to £340, whereas T-mobiles package would be £360. With 3 of course there would have been an extra 36GB possible data allowance all totalled up.

Seeing as they are both using the same network, the clear winner has to come down to the numbers at the end of the day.

Operators, it seems, have been dragging their feet and causing delays, saying they need to do technical testing to make sure the new service won’t cause any interference with the mobile services already out there.

From the New York TImes:

Representatives Anna Eshoo and Edward Markey suggested the operators might have other motives. “We are concerned that incumbent wireless carriers are seeking unnecessary and unprecedented testing delays to prevent new innovative competitors from entering the market,” they wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

How many times have we seen this sort of scenario? Operators see something coming that’s inexorable yet they reckon it will hurt their bottom line, so they drag their feet for as long as they can rather than thinking up new ways to make sure they stay ahead of the competition. Fingers crossed we see this free wireless service as soon as possible.

DoCoMo is now working on testing handover from one base station to another, and how LTE performs in both indoor and outdoor environments, carrying out the trials near its R&D labs in Yokosuka.

It’s great to see companies making bigger and bigger leaps in bandwidth – good news for efficiency as much as anything. The only downside? DoCoMo expects it won’t finish testing the technology til 2009, so we’re still years away from actually getting our hands on devices and networks that can deliver this speed. Why do operators keep teasing us like this?!