Wi-Fi Alliance Confirms No Changes to Its Draft N Tests

The Wi-Fi Alliance won't modify its certification tests for the ratified version of 802.11n: Changes aren't needed, the group says. This was completely expected, but glad to put yet another check in a box. The 802.11n standard will finally move from draft to completed status in September, although a vote taken recently has already formally closed the process.

PC World notes, from a briefing with the alliance, that there are four optional elements to 802.11n that will be certified in the future. Those optional parts were where changes took place after the mandatory elements were settled more or less in January 2007.

802.11n Moves Closer to Ratification

Verizon Limits Free Wi-Fi to Laptops

The fine print is now available on Verizon's free Wi-Fi deal for its broadband customers: Only laptop Windows XP/Vista (32-bit only) users need apply. Which seems insane to me, but it's also in line with Verizon's remarkable micro-management of its users and usage. The "how to get it" page explaining how to obtain free Wi-Fi notes, "Verizon Wi-Fi is not available for PDAs, phones, desktop PCs or Macs."

I can reason that the PDA and phone issue is that the company hasn't figured out which smartphones and others to add the service to and whether to charge for it. AT&T offers iPhone and some BlackBerry owners free Wi-Fi on its home network of 20,000 hotspots (mostly McDonald's and Starbucks locations); Verizon, however, operates no Wi-Fi network, so additional users mean additional costs. Smartphone users are extremely heavy Wi-Fi data consumers, and if Verizon's deal with Boingo isn't flat-rate per user, then that might explain the hesitation.

The limit to laptops is sort of ridiculous. Desktop PC owners won't easily be able to access laptops, and you have to do be a broadband Verizon customer already, so it's not like you'd be using a Wi-Fi hotspot as your primary Internet connection, would you? There's a story here that's not being told.

The lack of Mac support is simply absurd. Boingo supports Windows and Mac OS X, and Verizon has long had excellent software and tech support for its 3G hardware for Mac OS X.

But wait! There's more. As I noted in a revised version of the story yesterday, IDG News Service noted and a spot check reveals that Verizon isn't offering McDonald's stores, which Boingo resells from AT&T's network. The reason there might be that the McDonald's contract is organized differently. Wayport signed up McD years ago, and structured its arrangement to offer flat-rate resale fees per user in a network, instead of session fees. With that ostensibly still in place even after AT&T's acquisition of Wayport, Verizon might not want to pay the associated fees to offer McDonald's access. This plus Verizon's awful hotspot finder rips some of the heart out of the ubiquity of Boingo's U.S. network.

Finally, Verizon limits this free offer to higher-tiered DSL and fiber (FiOS) subscribers. Existing 3 Mbps DSL or faster and 20 Mbps FiOS or faster customers are the only ones who qualify. Further, only new FiOS customers who buy 25 Mbps or faster connections will qualify.

This is all shooting itself in the foot; penny wise, pound foolish. If you're going to make an extra add-on attractive, you can't dangle a bright shiny ball at all your customers, and then snatch it away from what's likely 25 to 40 percent of them, based on market research.

Atlanta Airport Considers Free Wi-Fi, But Can’t Yet Afford It

Sprint Buys Virgin Mobile, the Last MVNO

Sprint Nextel will acquire the majority stake in Virgin Mobile USA that it doesn't own: Virgin Mobile was the last major mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), a cellular company type that owns customers not cell towers. While there have been attempts to create large MVNOs, only Virgin Mobile has remained viable, although not wildly profitable. Sprint was an investor in Virgin Mobile, and many said that was what gave the MVNO staying power. Most recently Virgin Mobile absorbed Helio, an MVNO started by SK Telecom and EarthLink to bring advanced phones from South Korea to the U.S. market and target services at younger folk.

Virgin Mobile concentrates on prepaid phone service, which is distinct from the postpaid contract offerings that require long commitments. With prepaid service, you pay in advance for minutes or no-contract subscriptions, and wind up paying substantially less. Virgin Mobile has a $50/mo unlimited talk plan, which contrasts with postpaid plans that are twice as much. (Virgin Mobile requires 2-year commitments on smartphones under the Helio brand, however.)

The company also has the only pay-as-you-go mobile broadband service. You have to pay upfront for a $150 USB 3G modem--sold exclusively by Best Buy for Virgin Mobile--and then service has no commitment. You buy pools of expiring bandwidth. $10 gets you 100 MB over 10 days; $20, $40, and $60 get you 250 MB, 600 MB, and 1 GB over 30 days. If you need more bandwidth, you buy another pool--no sneaky $50/MB overage fees.

While the broadband prices are high compared to Wi-Fi (Boingo with $10/mo unlimited North American hotspot access, for instance), they are extremely favorable when looking at major carrier 3G plans, which are $60 per month with a required 2-year commitment. Those plans, however, top out at 5 GB of use per month.

The biggest segment of growth for Sprint is prepaid plans, but it's sold such plans on its iDEN network, the old Nextel technology that will some day fade away. Virgin Mobile uses regular old CDMA, and brings over 5 million customers.

Cheryl Cole will not work with Chris BrownWhen It’s Too Good To Be True: Zer01

US Airways Trials In-Flight Internet

US Airways becomes the latest airline to add Wi-Fi: The airline has over 300 mainline aircraft, but will start in early 2010 with just a few dozen, all Airbus A321s, to see how it goes.

AirTran Finishes Internet Install

When It's Too Good To Be True: Zer01

My pal Nancy Gohring wrote a long feature exploring the unlimited cell offering from Zer01: Is investigative technology journalism dead? Not at IDG News Service, at least. Zer01 has been on my radar since last year, when the firm started talking about an unlimited flat-rate cellular voice and data plan. Each time I heard more about the service, the details had changed, and the offer had expanded to sweep in more and more features, like text messaging.

Let's just be straightforward here. Even before Nancy had run down the specifics of Zer01, its CEO, and its affiliates and partners' history, it was clear that there was no way for the firm to be able to do what it claims. Nancy ran down a lot of other warning flags, too. (I don't link to Zer01 because I don't want to add to its link score on Google.)

The company has said all along it was using GSM. Only two operators, T-Mobile and AT&T, have substantial enough U.S. footprints to provide the roaming Zer01 would need. Neither firm could possibly wholesale enough bytes at a low-enough cost to Zer01 to allow unlimited service. Zer01 keeps claiming that it is not a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), like Virgin Mobile (one of the last standing), but every aspect of how it works requires that it acts as an MVNO.

The firm told Nancy that it had its own fiber-optic network terminated at cell operator equipment so that the cost of transit charged by the carriers would be nil. But it also said outright that carriers' cost for the wireless component of the network was essentially nothing, which is simply ridiculous.

Nancy was able to get AT&T and T-Mobile to state on the record that they have no business relationship with Zer01, which puts the icing on the cake.

There's no such thing as unlimited, except when the cost to a user to obtain unlimited is high enough to restrain use, or the cost to a carrier averages out to low enough that it can make a buck. If you read the fine print on VoIP contracts, almost all have a "fair use" or "reasonable use" number that's high (thousands of minutes), but not infinite.

The bandwidth caps that ISPs are putting on their networks, like Comcast's 250 GB/mo limit, are too low (1 TB would be more reasonable), but it's an attempt to block the 99th percentile users that turn a profitable service into a loss.

Given that the three major 3G carriers have 5 GB/mo caps on usage (T-Mobile doesn't yet have national coverage for 3G), it's impossible to see how their networks could be used by a reseller for unlimited data.

Add to that the promise of unlimited voice minutes and text messages. Even with VoIP, calls to another network require settlement fees, typically per-minute termination fees for landlines, and other rates for cell connections. Text messaging is settled across networks as well using peering contracts or clearinghouse services.

If the major carriers are paying per minute and per message to each other, how can a startup relying on their networks have no cap?

Atlanta First Big Move for New Clearwire

Plastic Logic Puts Wi-Fi in Reader

Plastic Logic equips book reader with 3G, Wi-Fi: Some sense at last from Plastic Logic, a future competitor to Sony and Amazon for electronic book reading. The company's reader is due out next year, and AT&T will be the backend for a 3G connection. But the device will also have a Wi-Fi radio, which may reveal something of the business model. Amazon built a Sprint modem into each Kindle, and apparently bundles Sprint's download fee into the price of each book.

With Plastic Logic, the inclusion of Wi-Fi implies that delivery fees may vary depending on method. And Plastic Logic's partners will likely offer tons of free books, which doesn't make sense for the company to subsidize by paying AT&T something. Barnes & Noble just unveiled its ebook library and reading software (Mac, Windows, iPhone, and BlackBerry), and said it will sell books for Plastic Logic, but potentially other devices, too.

Comcast Starts Offering Clearwire WiMax Service

Wee-Fi: New York Public Library Glory, Cape Cod Unescape

The New York Public Library opens a room for technology users: The grand anchor of the city's public library system has opened its special-occasion room, the Edna Barnes Salomon Room, as a "wireless Internet reading and study room." Starting yesterday, the Beaux-Arts style room will offer seating for 128 patrons. The library will also loan out laptops. The room is 4,500 sq ft, and gorgeous. It sports "16 custom made, solid black walnut tables and dark brown leather chairs that will match the rooms' dark maple wood floor." Wi-Fi is free, as it has been at the library and adjoining Bryant park (operated separately) for some time.

Cape Cod vacationers can't unplug, un-unwire: The Boston Globe writes of the plight of those have jobs, take vacations, and aren't able to stop working on Cape Cod. Okay, let's not cry too much for those that get Cape vacations; it's a marvelous place. But it is sad that a function of modern life and the economy is that people are hunting out free Wi-Fi at 10 pm at night in the parking lots of libraries.

Guinness celebrate 250 years with Tom JonesVenice Unwires