Clarification on Philadelphia's Usage

A few days ago, I questioned the Wall Street Journal’s statement about 28,000 daily unique users on Philadelphia’s network: The Phila. network, operated by NAC, covers more than 75 sq mi of the city, but the Journal said that the areas available for free usage were only the parks. I couldn’t reconcile how 28,000 unique people (or devices) were using the network in public areas (parks?) each day.

Turns out the Journal was conflating “public areas” with public access. The Wi-Fi service is available throughout the city, in the same way it was under EarthLink’s operation, which means that many people are using it from their homes or businesses. Still, it’s a relatively remarkable number.

The folks behind the network said that weekdays see 25,000 to 28,000 unique users based on MAC addresses, which are reasonably good gauges for unique users. Someone with a laptop and an iPhone would be counted twice, of course, but the overall contraction from unique devices to people is probably less than 10 percent.

One of the principals behind the current network’s owner also noted that 40 percent of network use is from Apple gear, including the iPhone, iPod touch, and computers; PC systems represent 30 percent.

I keep trying to pin down which network has the most usage in the world, and Philadelphia is the likely winner, with San Francisco’s Meraki network as No. 2, and Minneapolis (with a claimed 10,000+ subscribers) at No. 3.

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Novatel's MiFi 3G Router Acts as Server, Too

Novatel Wireless has introduced a sleek mobile 3G router that’s seemingly far more than its competition: The MiFi is a cellular router due out in the first quarter of 2009, with pricing not yet disclosed. While there are several competitors on the market, notably from Junxion, a firm acquired by Sierra Wireless earlier this year, Novatel claims some unique qualities. The MiFi will have an internal battery that can offer 3G to Wi-Fi bridging for up to 4 hours of use and 40 hours of standby.

The slim unit appears to be designed around an integral card that’s not removable, which is a departure from most similar designs, which allow interchangeable cards supplied by an integrator or an end-user. Novatel hasn’t yet said what technology will be inside, but it’s easier to see both EVDO Rev. A and HSPA versions with slots for inserting the necessary authentication card.

Novatel also says it will differentiate the MiFi by allowing third-party applications to run on the system, and supporting external storage with a microSD slot that can handle formats up to 8 GB. That means that the MiFi could act as a caching Web server, a store-and-forward mail server, a VPN end point, and other purposes as well.

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Wee-Fi: Cities That Work, Boingo iPhone App

The Wall Street Journal takes a brief look at four cities for which Wi-Fi is working: I wrote a piece for Ars Technica a few weeks ago that’s a superset of the cities mentioned here: Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. But it’s good to see the coverage about what’s working in a national newspaper. The reporter is on the ball about what’s different and useful about the networks that got built and are running. In 2009, we’ll see how what we think is working in 2008 proves out. So far, so good. Expectations are lower, but projects planned better, than in 2004 to 2007.

The only nit I’ll pick is that for Philadelphia, the reporter says that 28,000 unique users connect to free Wi-Fi in the parks each day, which is entirely impossible. (A typo that’s there right now says “28,0000,” but I’m assuming the number is 28,000 instead of a plausible but high 2,800.) Could there be 28,000 unique users over a month? Maybe. But just in the parks?

Boingo releases iPhone, iPod touch app: The free application lets you enter your account information once, and then connect by selecting the Wi-Fi network and letting Boingo do the work.

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Actual Numbers on Paid Airport Wi-Fi Usage

I’ve been trying for years to get real numbers about paid airport sessions and usage from Wi-Fi providers: Then the Miami-Dade airport authority just goes and reveals them all. Cool. A local paper reports that the the authority expects to net $700,000 instead of $900,000 as its share of service. The article says that the airport saw 12,500 sessions in September and 14,000 sessions in October, including pay-as-you-go users and roaming customers of Boingo, iPass, and T-Mobile.

The airport adjusted the price for service from $5 per hour and $10 per day to $7 per day and $20 per month during the summer, which accounted for some of the reduction in revenue, along with a drop in air travel.

We can run some numbers here, of course, as I’m having trouble with the math. If the airport is netting $700,000 on perhaps 200,000 sessions for the year (assuming that there was higher usage when travel was heavier, coupled with an increase late in the year), then their take is $3.50 per session net. It’s possible the reporter was mistaken, and this is gross revenue.

At $7 per day or $20 per month for half the year, that would mean that the majority of sessions were pay-as-you-go; a $20 per month user could represent 10 or 20 sessions. If you assume an average of $5 per session for pay-as-you-go (by taking into account monthly users and rates across the year), you need about 70 or 80 percent of my estimated sessions count. That would leave 40,000 to 60,000 sessions paid a buck a pop, if that, by Boingo, iPass, and T-Mobile.

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The New Clearwire Taking Orders in Portland, Ore.

It’s no secret that Portland had WiMax service: It’s just that you couldn’t buy it. Intel has been WiMax with Clearwire for many months—it may be nearly 18 months now, if I recall correctly. Intel employees have been walking around the city and their campus in Beaverton with WiMax cards in their laptops, and not allowed to talk about it.

Thus, it’s no surprise that the first market for Clear, the new brand for the combined Clearwire/Sprint Xohm operations, is Portland. I just qualified an address there of a friend, and find that the service can be ordered for the home with prices from $20/mo for 768 Kbps/128 Kbps to $40/mo for 6 Mbps/512 Kbps. Mobile prices are all rated for 4 Mbps/384 Kbps with monthly data limits: $30/mo for 200 MB, $40/mo for 2 GB, $50/mo for unlimited.

There’s also a $35 activation fee, and a modem fee: $175 or $5 per month. This is far higher than Sprint’s subsidized $50 modem deal with Xohm. Expect that to be harmonized.

Note that Clearwire suggests you read their Terms of Service for more details. As far as I can tell, unlimited isn’t footnoted with a 5 GB or other limit. They will still obviously check for abuse, and the low upstream rates make it both difficult to run services and painfully clear if you are.

The upstream speeds are still far too slow. WiMax can be configured to allow relatively symmetric upstream rates, and I expect we’ll see more of that as an option as Clearwire learns usage patterns.

The ordering process doesn’t suggest that you have to wait, while Clearwire was saying yesterday that Portland service would be available in 2009. This might be noted when you consummate the order.

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Buffalo Allowed to Sell Wireless in U.S.

Buffalo Technology has had an injunction lifted in its ongoing patent litigation with Australia’s CSIRO technology agency: Buffalo was unable to sell Wi-Fi equipment in the U.S. since a permanent injunction was put in place in June 2007 following their 2006 loss in a lawsuit. CSIRO has a patent that they argue covers aspects of OFDM in 802.11a/g. CSIRO sued Buffalo after the Japanese equipment maker declined to pay royalties.

The injunction prevented Buffalo from selling gear that it offers in Japan and elsewhere in the world during the huge expansion of Draft N sales. This likely caused tens of millions of dollars of lost revenue, if not more. Buffalo was formerly mentioned in a single breath with D-Link, Linksys, and NetGear. (Linksys, as a division of Cisco, already pays CSIRO license fees: Cisco agreed to honor CSIRO’s patent assertion because of a purchase of an Australian firm a few years ago.)

Buffalo can now sell Wi-Fi gear in the U.S. due to winning a narrow appeal in October that sent the case back to a lower court to resolve an issue. The company could still be liable for damages and other fees if the lower court finds for CSIRO and higher courts agree.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing allows a single Wi-Fi channel to be subdivided into a smaller number of channels, improving performance in reflective environments and adding robustness against interference. It’s also used in WiMax, LTE, and other standards. This could mean CSIRO would pursue makers of other technology eventually as well.

CSIRO has never given any sign of asking for predatory royalty rates, but several firms have countersued, including Intel, Dell, and Microsoft. Those cases are still in litigation, as far as I can tell.

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Wee-Fi: Virgin America Formal Launch, Heathrow Coach-Fi, Laptop Recovery

Virgin America formally launches: Last week, Virgin America offered free Wi-Fi on its single Internet-equipped aircraft, My Other Ride’s a Spaceship. Today, the service goes commercial ($10 for flights 3 hours or shorter; $13 for longer flights), and the rollout to other planes begins. Virgin has a special URL—http://wifitracker.virginamerica.com/—that takes you to a tracking page showing which flights in progress have Wi-Fi, but they don’t yet tell you how to determine whether a given flight you’ll be on will offer the service. With 24 planes and a plan to add service one per week, that shouldn’t be a problem for long.

Heathrow Airport Coach Link adds Internet service: Icomera, a leading transportation Wi-Fi firm, has added free Wi-Fi to FirstGroup’s RailAir coach service that connects Heathrow Airport with Reading in England. RailAir runs every 20 minutes for a 50-minute route. FirstGroup handles 3 million passengers a day across all its routes, which makes it a plum market for future expansion.

Awareness Technologies adds Wi-Fi positioning for laptop recovery: Awareness is the latest firm to partner with Skyhook Wireless to use Wi-Fi positioning to its products, in this case Laptop Cop, software designed to aid in recovery. The software starts at $50 for a 1-year license, with discounts for quantity.

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