Time Warner Announces Wi-Fi Service

Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi will give free service to Road Runner broadband subscribers in New York City/Long Island locations, and on Cablevision's network: Time Warner will put service in at eight LIRR Port Washington line stations, three spots in Manhattan (including Bryant Park, which may be overkill, no?), and four Queens parks.

Subscribers also get access to all of Cablevision's Wi-Fi locations, and Cablevision Optimum Online broadband subscribers will have access to Time Warner's hotspots. Expect Comcast next, given that a Comcast network ID is already being broadcast in some locations.

This is a smart complementary partnership among firms that don't compete for customers in the same territory, and are all engaged in a battle against Verizon--particularly Verizon's fiber service.

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AT&T 3G MicroCell Finally Announced for Mid-April

After more than a year of leaked news and trials, AT&T will ship its femtocell in April: We've heard about and seen pictures of the 3G MicroCell for quite a while. Like all femtocells, the idea is to connect mobile users voice and data calls in their homes or small offices to a broadband connection, improving quality and throughput without taxing AT&T's network. The benefit to customers is better coverage, fewer dropped calls, higher consistent data throughput, and, optionally, unlimited calling.

For carriers, every call or bit of data that they don't have to pass over their expensive, congested mobile networks saves them real money in preventing customer defection and deferred capital expense, while increasing subscriber revenues.

The AT&T 3G Microcell is unique in working only with 3G; Verizon and Sprint's options are 2G only, which allow them to offload voice but not data. For smartphones that have Wi-Fi built in, that's not such a big deal for any of those three carriers, but for customers without Wi-Fi (there still are some) or phones that can use 3G mobile broadband only, AT&T has a much bigger win.

AT&T, like Sprint and T-Mobile (which uses Wi-Fi with the UMA standard), will also offer an unlimited calling plan for domestic US calls placed and received when in range of the 3G MicroCell. AT&T will charge $20/mo for either individual or family plans. That's steep for an individual: AT&T's general mobile plans are $40 for a 450-minute plan, $60 for 900 minutes, and $70 for unlimited calling anywhere. For families, it's a far better deal.

T-Mobile's UMA unlimited calling service is $10 per month (individual or family), and Sprint's Airave is $10/mo/account or $20/mo for a family plan.

The 3G MicroCell will cost $150, with a $100 mail-in rebate if you purchase monthly unlimited service at the same time, and another $50 rebate for those who sign up for AT&T fixed broadband services (DSL or fiber). Sprint charges $100 for its femtocell and a $10/mo fee, while T-Mobile's router is about $50. (T-Mobile seems to have removed pricing information from its site, so I can't confirm at this moment.)

Verizon has no calling plan, but sells its Wireless Network Extender for $250, with no recurring fees. It's meant to improve signal coverage only, which still seems strange to me. I suppose those who want Verizon service and can't get a good signal at home have an option with this device, as opposed to changing carriers.

Phone numbers need to be registered with the 3G MicroCell to be used. AT&T says the 3G MicroCell will be available in mid-April.

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Unique T-Mobile In-Flight Promotion: Gogo Service for Six Months

T-Mobile's HTC HD2 smartphone comes with six months' service on Aircell's in-flight Gogo network: The Windows Mobile 6.5 Pro smartphone (with HTC's Sense interface on top) is the first phone I know of to come with a Gogo promotional bundle. Gogo pricing for mobile devices is $4.95 for flights up to 1 1/2 hours and $7.95 for longer flights. For frequent fliers on airlines with Wi-Fi onboard, the free access may be an incentive. Service is for six months from registration, ending no later than 30 June 2011.

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Eye-Fi Overhauls Wi-Fi Camera Cards with X2

On the heels of shipping its Eye-Fi Pro X2 cards, Eye-Fi has revamped its main product line: The X2 technology is now embedded in all its current product line, which has been simplified to three products, all of which offer more features and capacities at lower prices than the previous product line-up. The company has also expanded its hotspot deal to cover all 20,000+ AT&T locations (starting 31 March 2010).

The Connect X2 ($49.99) is a 4 GB SDHD card that uploads JPEGs and videos to a computer and one of 25 photo-sharing and social-media sites with which Eye-Fi has partnered.

The Explore X2 ($99.99) stores 8 GB of images and videos, and adds eternal Wi-Fi–based geotagging (via Skyhook Wireless), and one year of hotspot uploading.

The Pro X2 ($149.99) announced earlier this year has all the Explore features, plus RAW photo format upload support and ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection capability (to transfer images to a laptop without an access point around).

Eye-Fi continues to sell the Eye-Fi Geo ($59.95) exclusively via Apple. It has 2 GB of storage.

Hotspot service can be purchased separately for the Connect X2 for $14.99 per year (as well as for older models that Eye-Fi will continue to support), as well as renewed in the future for the Explore X2 and Pro X2.

All three models support 802.11b/g/n, Class 6 data transfer rates over USB (48 Mbps), and feature what Eye-Fi calls Endless Memory. When a card starts to approach capacity, whether it's connected to the Internet or a local network or not, it deletes the oldest items that have been confirmed as delivered to a computer.

As I have written many times before, there's nothing quite like the Eye-Fi. None of the built-in Wi-Fi support on any camera comes close to what Eye-Fi offers. Several camera makers have enabled special support for the Eye-Fi in specific models--Canon and Casio have a fairly large list. This support is mostly remaining powered up until all images are transferred, although some models have additional features such as an onscreen activity indicator.

This refresh to the product line makes the Eye-Fi a better deal again by boosting capacity and features, offering a great entry-level price, and making it simpler to decide among models.

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Clearwire's Average User Burns 7 GB Per Month

A key advantage of Clearwire's WiMax network is a lack of bandwidth limits: As carriers boost speeds on mobile broadband networks, users will increasingly employ those networks like wired broadband--and run into the 5 GB limit beyond which insane per MB fees are charged--from 5 cents to 20 cents a megabyte, which is $50 to $200 per gigabyte. Clearwire sees its freedom from limits as an advantage, quite clearly.

Clearwire's CEO Bill Morrow said in a press release that the average 4G customer on the Clear network uses over 7 GB per month. That would cost a 3G user $100 to $400 extra, but it's included in a $45/mo unlimited 4G mobile plan (or cheaper for fixed home service); unlimited data is also included in all home plans (from $25 to $45/mo). A home and mobile bundle is $65/mo.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon will be under increasing pressure in markets that Clearwire enters and co-markets with Sprint (which can offer 3G back-up in the rest of the country) and cable operators like Comcast. I would suspect that if Clearwire's service tests out well, heavy users likely to be long-term subscribers and pay regular overages will simply move to a Sprint/Clearwire plan, using a 3G/4G combined modem or portable router.

On the issue of capacity, Clearwire said it is "doubling the number of transmitters and receivers per site, thereby boosting potential end user speeds by approximately 20-30 percent." This would answer a concern raised to me by Novarum's Ken Biba, who found in testing earlier this year that Clearwire wasn't dense enough in its deployments for its suggested download speeds. Clearwire also said it's increasing backhaul by 250 percent or more.

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Starbucks Offers Wi-Fi Just for Registering a Card

I somehow missed a significant change in Starbucks revised rewards program launched last December: In the initial announcements from Starbucks about a reworking of its discount card (eliminated) and rewards attached to its stored-value Starbucks Card (revamped into tiers), I reported on 3 November 2009 that new card users would have to make five purchases to reach a new "Green" level, and be able to use two continuous hours of Wi-Fi each day at no cost, along with a bunch of free beverage add-ons. I also wrote that Wi-Fi access was enabled only for 30 days following the use of card. Neither turned out to be true in the program that launched.

But when I checked a couple of days ago for a forthcoming article in The Seattle Times, I found different verbiage--in fact, two different sets. On the main rewards page, Starbucks said the deal was as above; on the FAQ, the Wi-Fi deal was much simpler. After a couple of days of finding the right person at Starbucks, I've got the answer: the program changed, and they didn't make a fuss about it.

The deal as it stands requires just obtaining a Starbucks Card and making a single purchase or adding $5 to the card's balance, which qualifies you for the "Welcome" level. You must then register the card, and sign up for an AT&T account. After that, Wi-Fi is free for two successive hours a day. No further purchases are needed. The Web site is being fixed (you're welcome).

That's much closer to free than Starbucks has offered before, and a big turnaround from what it was promoting in its FAQ in November.

It's nearly free, even.

A huge swath of AT&T customers as well as Qwest DSL customers get access to Starbucks all day, every day, at no additional cost.

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Free Wi-Fi Access via Skype This Weekend

Skype is promoting its Skype Access pay-per-minute Wi-Fi option by making it free this weekend: From the start 20 March (0000 GMT) to the end of 21 March (2359 GMT), you can use Skype Access to access 100,000 hotspots worldwide at no cost. The service, available since last July, must just have left beta testing, even though it was unclear to me that it wasn't a released service.

Skype Access uses Skype software to handle a Wi-Fi login transaction, and normally costs (including Luxembourg's VAT) US$0.22, Cdn$0.26, €0.16 per minute; fees are debited from the Skype Credit in your account. Skype itself is a free download and free to use for Skype-to-Skype IM, file transfer, audio chat, and video chat.

That's expensive in the U.S., where you can pay $10/mo for unlimited Boingo Wireless service at the same or more locations, and where $8 to $12 is the most you'd pay for 24 hours (the equivalent of about 30 to 60 minutes at Skype's per-minute rate).

However, elsewhere in the world, being able to get 10 minutes of Wi-Fi for a couple bucks might seem much more appealing without having a service plan or paying ludicrous European hotel prices, which can be $20 to $40 per night.

A full list of supported hotspots networks is available.

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