technology filter: Wi-Fi & Networking

A Picture Worth a Thousand Conversations

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:15:39 GMT

Will we soon be seeing "Law and Order: JPG?"

New York City's Emergency Communications Center, which handles Gotham's 11 million 911 calls may soon find out if a picture is worth a thousand conversations. Officials are considering accepting instant witness photographs from crime scenes that would document instances and possibly generate a more informed response. The pictures would originate mostly from cell phone cameras at the scene.

Some emergency communications centers in smaller jurisdictions are already testing similar systems. The massive emergency center in New York City, however, could pose a real bandwidth test. Officials say the center is not as concerned about the additional information that would have to be managed by the communications center as it is about the risk for the center's communication lines. An effort to jam the lines with a hoax, for instance, could cripple 911 communications.

The city hopes such a citizen will provide additional documentation for incidents such as automobile accidents — especially hit and runs. A photograph of even a partial license plate in a hit and run could be priceless. Currently, the system requires those who submit photographs to access a separate system that gives specific instructions on how to download pictures. If the pictures are used in a criminal trial, the photographer would also have to appear in court to verify the images.

A key player in the effort to tie consumer images to 911 services is Connecticut-based PowerPhone. Its product is already in use at call centers in Douglas County, Colo.; Seward, Alaska; Tolland County, Conn. and Dade County, Miss.

If nothing else, the photographs might eventually find a gallery of their own at the Museum of Modern Art.

Posted by Barbara.

Boeing Grounds Wireless Plans

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:48:27 GMT

As one Puget Sound corporate giant takes a giant leap forward, another has taken a step back in technology. As Vista is launched by Microsoft, Boeing has announced that a planned wireless system for its 787 will not get off the ground.

Boeing says problems with bandwidth and regulatory requirements for wireless access points in numerous foreign states has made the wireless installation less appealing for the company. At the same time, engineers discovered that not installing the wireless system and its access points will save precious pounds from the slimmed down two-engine aircraft. The plane is being sold for its fuel efficiency at a time when airlines are battling rising fuel prices.

This probably means you won’t be getting on a plane any time soon, firing up the laptop and typing an email with the subject line “guess where I’m writing from?” Yet, the FCC continues to consider the possibility of allowing the use of cell phones in flight. Anyone who has ever been on public transit while numerous people are talking on a cell phone can imagine what that will be like.

Perhaps the day will come when airlines will institute a “cell phone” or “no cell phone” section on planes, like the “smoking” and “no smoking” sections of times gone by. Pollution, after all, is pollution.

Posted by Barbara.

Deck the Halls With Wi-Fi Interference

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 15:17:19 GMT

The Battle in Seattle — the SeaTac Airport skirmish in the war on Christmas — may be settled, but a more intense battle has ensued in the trenches, or cubicles. This time, the enemy of Christmas is a relatively new combatant, the wireless network.

AirMagnet Inc, which analyzes the productivity of enterprise wireless networks, says little things like Christmas wreaths, tinsel and even the angel on top of a Christmas tree can interfere with the performance of a wireless network across the room. AirMagnet says these interferences could diminish Christmas season wireless network performance by as much as 25 percent.

The company says the interference can be reduced by clearing decorations from the path of access points, or moving the network connection a few inches. But then, when you couple this with worker attention focused on shopping online and dipping into the leftover eggnog from the holiday party, one wonders how any business gets done in the month of December.

Posted by Barbara.

Georgia on His Mind at My Space

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:22:32 GMT

Darren Bates, unlike W.C. Fields, would rather be in Philadelphia, than in a Georgia County Jail. According to Georgia police sources, Mr. Bates likes to spend his time communicating with his My Space Friends from the local library when he is not committing anti-social acts that include alleged assault and the illegal acquisition of automobiles. Mr. Bates had been a resident of the Baldwin County Georgia Jail prior to his unscheduled departure.

The local sheriff in Baldwin County traced the suspect to Philadelphia with the help of My Space officials. The social networking site maintained records of the suspect’s frequent visit to the local library in Philadelphia and tipped off authorities to make the arrest during one of Bates’ regular visits.

The arrest points out a deficiency in inmate education on modern technology. A more technically savvy criminal might have figured out that user identities are cheaper than a dime a dozen and that public computers are available at more than one Philadelphia library branch.

Perhaps inmates need to put those law books aside for a minute and look at the “Online Social Networking for Dummies” series.

Posted by Barbara

And the Skype Phone Rollout Continues

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:24:00 GMT

First it was no-name vendors trying to get an early lead in the dedicated Skype phone market. Then companies like D-Link, Linksys and Netgear came out with Skype phones over their own and since then more and more vendors have jumped on the bandwagon.

The latest is the 9630 from US Robotics. What's neat about this phone is that it can handle Skype calls via either the traditional USB-to-PC-to-Internet connectiopn or by simply plugging them into a regular land line in which case the phone actually functions like a regular phone that can also take Skype calls. That's pretty cool. All the other popular Skype phones can't do anything except Skype calls.

Other than that, it's a multi-handset phone that can handle up to four handsets in the house and it should retail for about $120 for the base unit and $70 for each expansion handset by September in the US.

(via Ubergizmo)

Review: Great Writeup of the SunRocket VoIP Service

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:23:49 GMT

I already blogged on my fab experience with the Linksys WIP330 wireless VoIP phone. A good enough experience that I decided to drop MCI (hack, pitui) in favor of the much cheaper BroadVoice service. But there are other competing services out there. One that I almost bought was SunRocket. These guys don't bill monthly. You get a nationwide calling plan, a compatible phone, a few services (voice mailbox, etc.) for $200/year. That's right. You cut these guys a check once a year and you're good.

I didn't go with them because I didn't know enough about the service. Too bad that the guys at UberGizmo didn't write this review a couple of months ago when I was still on the market. They took the SunRocket service and wrote a really in-depth start-to-finish review of the service. Worth the read if you're thinking of taking the VoIP plunge.

(via UberGizmo)

Review: ASUS WiFi Router with Hard Disk

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:10:20 GMT

ASUS has gone and set the bar for a home Internet gateway to a new high. The company just released the ASUS WL-700gE, and TweakTown did a review. The thing has an amazing feature set:

802.11b/g WiFi access point
High-end WiFi standards support, including AES, 128-bit WEP, TKIP, & WPA.
10/100 local Ethernet port with 4-port Ethernet switch
Two internal firewalls, creating a DMZ within the device (that VERY cool).
Full Internet gateway features (router, NAT addressing, DHCP, SPI-firewall)
USB ports for hard drive expansion, printer sharing and more
A pre-installed 160GB IDE hard disk.
Web admin pages that include download management, web server, FTP server and content sharing features

Overall, this is a kick-butt unit. Wish it had 10/100/1000 on the Ethernet side, tho. Everything else is bleeding edge, why not the throughput? Oh, and it's supposed to cost about $260--when it's available here which is a detail that's apparently still a bit up in the air. A bit pricey, but when you consider that you're getting a pretty high-end Internet router and a network hard disk all in one, that price is actually pretty good.

Ferrari Gets Zoom Zoom WiFi with 802.11n

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:48:06 GMT

Acer's Ferrari line may well be one of the sexiest notebooks on the planet. Acer does quite a bit of work to keep this puppy both looking good and moving fast. Since CPUs are pretty much a flat field, Acer's gone ahead and looked for other ways to make the Ferrari speedier. They've settled on 802.11n wireless.

If you're running a WiFi network at home right now, chances are you're running either an 802.11b network (about 11Mbps and five+ years old) or 802.11g (25Mbps - 54Mbps and three+ years old). 802.11n is the next step and is supposedly capable of running up to 300Mpbs, but so far the WiFi vendors haven't been able to agree on a 100% bulletproof standard. The result is that the few 802.11n products we've reviewed haven't managed to get much beyond 115Mbps and they're also entirely proprietary--meaning that the 802.11n card in your PC needs to be from the same vendor as your 802.11n-capable router.

Acer's put Broadcom's Intensi-fi 802.11n chipset into the Ferrari, which could bump your wifi performance to the afore-mentioned 100+Mbps throughput rate--but only if you're also using Acer's InviLink Nplify wireless technologies. Don't expect any performance boost at Starbucks or the airport, but at home you could see some more Ferrari-like speed.

(via UberGizmo)

Beefy NIC for LAN Gamers

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 20:26:53 GMT

For all you gamers who enjoy blasting each other to smithereens during lengthy LAN parties, you know that network performance is almost as important as video performance in maintaining a competitive gaming experience. We network geeks might have argued this point in the past (at least a bit), but the new operating systems coming down the pike--especially Vista--are including smarter networking software. Vista, for example, will include a completely rebuilt TCP/IP stack as well as support for things like TCP offloading--that's where the CPU drops the task of lots of network processing onto a separate mini-CPU on the network interface card similar to the way in which a video card takes over the video calcs from the CPU.

Supporting these new technologies are numerous coporate-oriented network interface cards (NICs), but now there's some products being tossed gamers' way. The aptly named Killer Network Interface comes from Bigfoot and has its own 400MHz networking CPU and 64MB of dedicated processing RAM. Also supports gigabite Ethernet, CAT6 cabling (though pretty much any NIC can handle this) and even has another USB port in case you need another one of those.

Figure they're available in mid-August for about

(via Engadget)

VoIP WiFi Coming on Strong

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:04:33 GMT

You've seen the commericals: People do Stupid Things...followed by images of someone launching a baseball bat through a window or using a pogo stick as a suppository applicator. Those are from Vonage, one of the largest (and most in-debt) voice over IP (VoIP) telephone service providers out there--a service that uses the Internet to do full-service voice calls just like the Bells. The cable companies all have a service of their own that's priced a little higher, but there are also less well known competitors to Vonage that have even better deals--like BroadVoice that does a flat-rate nation-wide calling plan for about $20/mo.

So what's new about that? Wireless. Voice over IP can run over the WiFi network you've got setup in your house. Just get an account with a provider (Vonage, BroadVoice, Comcast, whoever), and the phone will find your wireless Internet connection, register itself with your provider over the Web and let you make calls.

Two things make this cool: First, voice quality is great. I just finished testing Linksys WIP330 WiFi VoIP phone for SMB IT, and unless I told people I was using a VoIP phone, no one knew. That's a major step up from only a year ago when this type of phone generally sounded one rung below a cell phone. Second, the phone doesn't care what Internet connection it's using. So right now, I'm typing this in a Starbucks in NYC and my Linksys is next to me. I can make calls, receive calls, whatever, using the Linksys which simply logged itself into my T-Mobile account. That means you can literally take your home or office phone with you as long as there's a Wireless Internet connection there.

Other vendors are coming out with wireless VoIP phones, too -- Jen DeLeo just posted on the new D-Link DPH-540 WiFi phone and Brian, Sasquatch and I checked out the ZyXEL P-2000W-v2 phone late last year. Brian and Sasquatch liked theirs so much they just paid ZyXEL for the units and kept them.

With Verizon just having managed to de-regulate itself and charge everyone higher prices for pretty much everything, moving to such a low-cost phone system is a no-brainer. And, yeah, Vonage and some of these others may go out of business or have the FCC pass some law that effectively kills independent VoIP services -- but that won't happen for at least a couple of years if it ever does. Meantime, two years of $20/mo is still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, no?

Dell Does Own EV-DO Card

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:34:31 GMT

Dell just gave PC Mag a sneak peek at the new EV-DO Wireless 5700 Mobile Broadband ExpressCard. For those who don't know, EV-DO is Verizon's and Sprint's very fast broadband wireless service. Even faster than T-Mobile's EDGE service, EV-DO is a great boon to folks who move around a lot in areas where EV-DO coverage is good. Right now that's typically urban areas, but we've tested it as far south from Manhattan as Elizabeth NJ.

Dell's 5700 is an OEMed version of the Novatel XV620, which PC Mag also reviewed, so it should work on non-Dell laptops, but Dell hasn't confirmed this yet. They also seem to have a Verizon-centric focus, offering the 5700 with 30 free days of Verizon's EV-DO, followed by $59.99/mo for existing Verizon voice customers and $79.99/mo for customers with no other Verizon plan. Pricing that in my mind restricts EV-DO to business users for now--that's way too expensive for personal use.

(via Gearlog)

802.11n Routers Reviewed: Get Set for Disappointment

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:20:29 GMT

I wrote a column on this several weeks ago for InfoWorld, but it's nice to get some independent verification. PC Mag just pubbed two reviews each on a brand new 802.11n WiFi router, the NetGear WNR854T and the Linksys WRT300N.

So, first, what's sexy about 802.11n over 11g? On paper, several things. First, bandwidth is supposed to double to over 100Mbps. In fact, it's theoretical limit is 300Mbps, which is why you'll see a lot of 802.11n products with that number in the model name. The 11n spec is also supposed to increase range--up to 200 feet with no loss in performance.

On paper. In real life, when I tested Linksys' early 11n router I didn't get more than 115Mbps and that only for a few seconds. And range seemed identical to 11g--and that's with both a router and a dedicated 11n PC Card. No word on what happens when an 11g user tries to use the same router.

PC Mag had similar experiences. Though the routers are well designed from a usage perspective, the performance of the 802.11n technology doesn't seem to justify buying one.

Skype & Mplat Kicking Vonage's...well, Never Mind

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:10:24 GMT

"People do stupid things...", seen those TV ads? Well, some people also spend loads of money advertising a low-cost phone system when maybe they should have been using a bit more of that money on tech development, legal research and political lobbying. Now, Vonage's pricing is still great on television, but the company is $400 million in debt after a nuclear disaster of an IPO, so no one knows how long all that fine pricing will last.

Meanwhile, Skype quietly released the ability to make regular calls over its VoIP service quite a while ago. Also released a spec. Mplat (which tragically sounds way too close to 'splat') took that spec and put together the Jumper S100. Vonage gives away its phone adapter. For $50, Mplat gives you the S100, which lets you turn a normal phone into a Skype phone complete with voice recording, voice mail, three-way calling and call forwarding.

You'll need to run software on your Windows machine (and only Windows, by the way) to get these advanced features; but hey, at least now that PC guy has something to jeer about at that smug Apple guy on TV.

This gives you at least as good a phone plan as a Vonage user--usually quite a bit better--plenty of voice quality and knowledge that your phone is backed by a highly profitable giant, namely eBay, instead of one whose future is so uncertain.

(via Techie Diva)

PC Mag FIOS Review

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:12:31 GMT

Verizon is testing fiber to the home under the brand name "Verizon FiOS". Yeah, it was supposed to have rolled it out to 80 million households nationwide by now (along with the other telcos) but what's a decade or so of slow service and massive profits between friends.

Still no word on when it'll be available to more than just select (and tiny) test sites, but an old colleague at PC Mag, Lane Ulanoff, has the good fortune to be living in one of Verizon's FIOS service test areas. So he got the service and wrote up the experience here.

Makes you chomp at the bit for faster access.

(via Gearlog)

Yet Another Perfectly Good Product Ruined

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 22:24:18 GMT

I posted on the Linksys WRT54G routing story several months ago. In short, the story goes like this: Linksys puts out the original WRT54G wireless router. Some folks buy it, plug it in, see a green link light on their wireless networking card and surf away happy. Finally, some geeky users buy it, dig around in it for a lil bit an discover that the router's operating system is based on Linux. This discovery spawns a host of 'hacked' WRT54G linux distros that can install on or over the router's existing operating system and provide loads more functionality.

Regular folks are happy with their basic WRT54G, geeks are happy with their modified WRT54Gs and Linksys is happy because it's selling WRT54G hardware like cheese at a rodent convention and it doesn't have to support the new hack operating systems because they've already issued a statement saying that if you install one of those it's at our own risk and your warranty is voided. Nobody cares and sales zoom on.

Then they screw it up. Instead of continuing with the existing WRT54G Linux operating system, they decide to go with a proprietary routing operating system from VxWorks. No real reason why other than to sell a product that makes their customer less happy. Linux customers naturally grumbled loudly at this move, so the company announced it would keep the Linux version available under the name WRT54GL with "L" standing for Linux.

So now the WRT54G V5 is on your CompUSA and BestBuy shelf, and carrying the non-modifiable VxWorks OS. Some stores carry the WRT54GL, but for the most part you have to buy that off the Web. Not such a big hassle, except that Linksys just came out and said it wasn't going to guarantee how long the WRT54GL was going to stay available.

So given the possible limited lifespan of the WRT54GL, the guys at Toms Hardware decided to take a close look at the WRT54G V5 to see just how badly is sucked. Apparently, quite a bit according to this review. Get your WRT54GLs while they last.

Linux About To Get New WiFi Smarts

Tue, 02 May 2006 20:07:40 GMT

One of the biggest peeves with putting the Penguin on a laptop is that until recently, Linux's support for WiFi was unreliable at best. If you're a real propeller head and like doing device driver programming, then sometimes it might have been fun. But for those of us who just want to use WiFi networking, not re-invent it, the process was just too cumbersome.

Well look out because a new 802.11x software stack is being released for Linux by Devicescape, a software stack specialist. The software is being released directly in open source under the GPL license, so most anyone should be able to grab it for mods, and it's surprisingly well fleshed out. Don't expect support for the latest 802.11n technology, but that's not what this release is about. This release is about supplanting the existing hodge podge of Linux wireless drivers with a professionally built baseline protocol stack that can be used an upgraded to the latest standards by other Linux projects.

Still be some time before this gets to us end-users, but the fact that it's out there is another feather in Tux's cap for sure.

(via Digg)

Review: Novatel X620 EV-DO PC Card

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 16:00:42 GMT

I know I ding Verizon a lot because...well, they're evil. But I live in the greater NYC area, so not only am I under the evil's thumb, I'm also privy to their latest bandwidth offerings--the few times in one human's life time that they actually do this.

The hot number today is EV-DO, which I talked about peripherally during my recent post on WiMAX and wireless broadband in general. Wireless braodband, again, being the concept of taking a cable modem/DSL-speed Internet connection with you wherever you go--feet, trains, planes and automobiles. Okay, probably not planes. Now, as I stated in the previous post, WiMAX may be better, faster, etc. than EV-DO; but WiMAX is still a dream for the end of 2006 or (far more likely) the deeper parts of 2007. EV-DO is here. Now. And it ain't bad.

The still-strikingly-named Sascha Segan over at PC Magazine, managed to get his grubby hands on a new EV-DO PC Card from Novatel, the X620. Works like any other PC Card -- plug it in, setup drivers, make sure it knows you're Verizon EV-DO account information and you're off to the races.

Because PC Mag and Segan are also in the NYC area, he's using the same EV-DO service that Verizon's selling the rest of us. So he ran some real-world throughput tests on the connection and the results are impressive. Even for Verizon. The actual Novatel card is still in late beta, but check out the preview anyway--not just for the Novatel specs, but for the looksee at Verizon's EV-DO service in action.

WiFi and Bluetooth via USB 2

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:40:25 GMT

If you've managed to find a used PC with USB 2, but no WiFi or Bluetooth, then this is the device for you. And if you think that sounds like a setup, you're wrong. One of the first things to go on my last three notebooks was the WiFi radio. These subsystems burnout and there's no replacing them without replacing the entire motherboard. Your best bet is to disable the old connections permanently and install a third-party device like this one from TRENDnet.

The TRENDnet 802.11g & Bluetooth Combo USB Adapter sums up its whole life in the name (otherwise known by the even less sexy moniker: TBW-103UB). It looks like a USB thumbdrive and install almost as easily. But instead of storage, you get 802.11g wireless and Bluetooth radios--they even work simulataneously and with surprisingly good performance numbers. That and a price tag of $60 makes them a great wireless replacement device for any notebook--or desktop for that matter.

Wireless Powerline Why Again?

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:07:05 GMT

Solwise just introed the PL-85PEW, a combo of powerline technology and wireless.

I had Netgear powerline running at my old house. Just plug the adapter in an open electrical socket and a matching plug in another socket and you've got a 10Mbps Ethernet connection. Just make sure it's running in a house where you own the fuse box. Shared apartment building fuse boxes or office building-style power distributors tend to confuse these little things.

So why combine wireless with this puppy? I mean, powerline is used as an easy way to network two rooms in the home; wireless is used as an easy way to connect two rooms in the home. So why both?

Because supposedly it gives more range. Look for one in the States sometime this summer. I'll see if it really works as adverted.

(via Ubergizmo)

CeBIT TidBIT: D-Link Releases WiFi Flip Phone

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:53:56 GMT

If you've got a broadband connection and an 802.11g WiFi network in your house, you can sign up for a number of broadband-based VoIP services in place of paying the telecomm robber barons their inflated prices. Think I'll do a Tech Novice post on that this weekend.

Meantime, if VoIP services like Vonage interest you, don't think you're relegated to simply using phones that plug into those Linksys routers of theirs. Those are just bridges between an analog phone (your old phone) and the VoIP world.

There are several new phone products coming out that are specifically built for WiFi VoIP, so they don't need one of those router bridges. One such is the D-Link DPH-540. Not only is a wireless phone that's made to run over WiFI, it's also a built as a cute little flip phone.

It works with any VoIP Internet service provider, and you can even register the device with those folks directly--no PC required. It's got plenty of range (according to D-Link) and supports advanced features, too, like WPA security, SMS text messaging, Web browsing and even email.

She'll cost $250 and you can look for her this summer.

Home Router That Almost Gets It Right

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:23:07 GMT

It's been slow in coming, but Cisco's purchase of Linksys is finally beginning to bear fruit in the form of more closely thought-out home networking products. The WRTSL54GS is the latest example, and while it's good it's just not as good as it could be.

The concept behind the $129 WRTSL54GS is simple: Take your everyday home broadband sharing router with the usual goodies (Wireles-G, 4-port switch and SPI firewall) and then add a USB port. This last is specifically designed to recognize hard disks--any USB-capable hard disk or flash drive will do. The WRTSL54GS recognizes the storage device and can automatically make it available as a shared drive over the local network or even the Internet.

Very cool, and definitely useful in the new media-rich home environment. But if you can share an Internet connection, share PCs, and share a hard disk...why can't you share printers.

Kind of a gaping hole in the feature set, no? And certainly not beyond the capabilities of Cisco/Linksys. Then again, I guess you can't have everything.

Comcast & Vonage Deny Blocking Rumors

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 16:21:16 GMT

The big telecomm and cable broadband robber barons--er, I mean, executives--have been lobbying congress to pass legislation that would allow them complete, unsupervised control of their Internet backbone networks. (You may be reading about this in other places as the "Net Neutrality" issue.) So they could provide a better service to humanity by overcharing the hell out of us for out of date technology.

A side benefit of this plot is that they'd also have the ability to block traffic from any other Internet service providers--especially Voice over IP. All these big freaks have non-innovative VoIP services that they're offering in competition with more innovative and cheaper VoIP providers, like Vonage. So if this loser legislation passes, it seems to make only good Machiavellian business sense to block that competition rather than giving your customers any kind of choice.

Thing is, lots of existing Vonage customers have been saying that Comcast has started this little blocking tactic a mite early--like now. They're saying they can't get reliable Vonage service over Comcast broadband even though their other Internet services are unaffected. Sounds like blocking to us technical types.

However, spokespeople for both Comcast and Vonage did that speaking thing last week and said neither side was aware of any traffic blocking on Comcast's part. So obviously all these symptoms are either imaginated or due to some other mystical problem.

Of course, Comcast wouldn't admit to it in any case.

And Vonage probably wouldn't because there's almost nothing they could do about it and would subsequently take a customer hit. Besides, they're undoubtedly figuring to get bought if the Net Neutrality thing goes the wrong way, so making a stink about it now doesn't help them in any case.

And that legislation is still in the works, so at best we've put the issue off to be revisited later.

Hey, it's Monday. You didn't expect good news, did you?

An Infuriating 400-Page Rant

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:57:43 GMT

Right now, there are Congressional hearings going on concerning what's being called 'Net Neutrality'. This boils down to a massive greed grab by telco and cableco Internet providers. What they're proposing could, by some of us, bet termed as nigh criminal.

But it's not the first time that the telcos have pulled this stuff--successfully. Read telecomm analyst Bruce Kushnick's book called The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal (availabe as a $20 eBook). But beware: If you're a geek and you have blood pressure problems, this is a difficult read.

Kushnick analyzes the ignorance-fest now called the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, during which we not only laid the groundwork for the utter mess that the telecomm industry is in today, but we also promised the telecomms an extra $200 billion. Wondering what all those sheckels were for?

Turns out, it was to deploy fiber to the home by 2006. Yup. Seems the telco boys promised the politicians that fiber to the home could be a reality by 2006 if they could just pony up $200 billion in tax cuts and incentives. But instead of actually spending that money on fiber to the home, the Verizon/SBC/AT&T/and more crowd spent it on low-end broadband like the crappy DSL we're learning to avoid in the Northeast, and massive senior executive pay packages.

Kushnick has a bunch of other pulse-quickening points in his work. Stuff like:

86 million US households should have had fiber service. Instead, one neighborhood on Long Island just got access to a FIOS trial. Great.
The US is presently ranked 19th on worldwide consumer broadband connectivity--just ahead of high-tech Slovenia.
The $200 billion were collected via tax breaks and federally-sanctioned phone rate increases. They average to about $2000 per US household.
What the telcos promised was a bi-directiontal 45Mbps link to 86 million homes for about $40/mo. Even if they'd delivered, we'd still be followers as the present-day Japanese and Korean standard is 100Mbps--for the same $40. Ow.

And now, on top of a what amounts to a $200 billion scam, these same weenies are trying to wreck the usage and business models we've been trying to build for the last decade so they can charge yet more money for a two- or three-tiered access model. Using "new" technologies that should have been obsolete starting this year. And, simultaneously blocking innovative technology traffic, like third-party VoIP so they can overcharge us for the same thing. I mean, greed is one thing, but this is getting truly evil.

FON: Share your Web Bandwidth

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 15:54:49 GMT

Even with corporate eBay backing, the guys at Skype are still looking at a free-as-much-as-possible delivery model--and they're gaining allies. Chief among these is FON, which is a site dedicated to sharing the public's wireless bandwidth. That's not public hotspot bandwidth, that's your bandwidth. Skype likes these guys so much they're engineering a multi-million dollar investment deal.

Just head over to the evidently European FON Web site, download their beta software and install it on your home WiFi router. Move the router next to the nearest window and you're a "FONero" sharing your Web bandwidth for the betterment of humanity. The goal being to "stick it" to all the phone companies with their over-priced usage plans, by combining that FON-shared bandwidth with the Skype telephony client.

Which would doubtless work, were it not for the little fact that, here in the States anyway, many of the same people providing the bandwidth on the other end of that WiFi router are the phone companies. Then again, considering how quickly those behemoths react, it'll probably work for a little while at least.

(via Gizmodo)

Cisco Stays Cool with Linux-Friendly WRT54GL

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:19:34 GMT

I posted last month on the Linksys WRT54G--the old version--and how it's based on an embedded Linux OS. An OS that by definition must be accessible and modifiable--which is just what a bunch of folks did, coming up with truly powerful new router software that elevated the WRTG54G to high-end router feature status.

Right up until Cisco/Linksys stopped making the router. The company began making their Series 5 of the router, which was based on something other than Linux and poof! the opportunity was gone--unless you like shopping on eBay a lot.

But the guys at Engadget report that Cisco has recognized all the effort that went into OpenWRT and has decided to keep making the Linux-compatible version of the product, now called the WRT54GL. And, yeah, that last 'L' stands for Linux. Yeehaw!

Some More on Open Source Souping of Your Linksys

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 20:00:39 GMT

Here's some more on making your Linksys WRT54G a super-router using open source firmware. The guys at Wi-Fi Planet posted a three-part article on the uprade process, and the third part just posted here.

It's a great step-by-step on adding OpenWRT to your Linksys. Check it out.

And in case you're new to networking, they also have a well-written introduction to IP addresses that just popped up a few days ago. You find few really good intro-tutorials around; WiFi Planet does a solid job. Worth repeat visits.

UPDATE: Check out the additional MSN searches link (below right) on open source firmware. Some surpriing links popped up inlcuding sites devoted entirely to programming open source firmware and other OS firmware available, like one for the Archos.

BugMeNot Isn't Quite Dead

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 18:19:54 GMT

Hate registering for restricted content? If you do, then chances are you've tried BugMeNot.com. This was/is a great Web utility that allows you to plug in the URL asking you to register and receive back a username and password for that site. No muss. no fuss, no registering. (Kind of ironic, me posting this from Spaces, but let's ignore that shall we?)

But BugMeNot's domain went dead yesterday prompting reports that the site was gone. However, Webby's World found its host address, which is still up and working.

Bad Bot Boy Busted--Bigtime!!

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 17:45:43 GMT

Jeanson James Ancheta got himself arrested yesterday. The FBI is accusing him of being a memebr of the Botmaster Underground and using a massive network of hijacked botstations to promote nefarious spam distribution.

According to the FBI, it's the first time they're charging some twep with this crime. If he's guilty, let's hope the Feebs make it stick, and don't just give the guy a pass to become a $300/hr consultant on Symantec's payroll.

Sprint Wireless Signs on CableCos--Why This Will Probably Suck

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 21:44:24 GMT

It's been out for a little while that Sprint is tired of Verizon Wireless getting all the press. VW's been in the news because it's EV-DO high-speed wireless data network is all the rage and actually deployed in more locations than most folks knew about.

Sprint has a high-speed wireless network of its own, and it's recently announced its intention to collaborate closely with Intel on promoting the new WiMax specification--presumably by giving Intel research help and promising to incorporate whatever WiMax chip technology Intel develops into its wireless infrastructure. Sounds cool. WiMax is a wireless broadband technology that has real promise.

Sprint has also quietly announced that it's reached the signing stage for deals with three of the major cable providers, including Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable which will allow those three companies to re-market Sprint's wireless service under their own labels.

Just read an analysis of this deal by Oliver Starr, who besides having a cool first name, also writes the excellent Mobile Technology Weblog. He thinks the deal has all kinds of promise, provided that both Sprint and the cable cos implement it properly.

Sorry, Oliver, but I'm not there with you. I agree from a business standpoint--meaning Sprint's, Comcast's, Cox & TW's perspective--this deal has fabulous potential. If they wake up and smell the radio, then they're in a great position to offer a variety of new and innovative services to their consumers.

But they won't. I say this because after 10 years of watching them, I've never seen them get something right on the first try. It's not their nature. What is in their nature is to use this technology to pointlessly clutch their customerbase that much closer to their collective bosoms. Yeah, that makes me sound like a left-wing tree-hugging Linux lover, but that's not why I'm saying it. I'm saying it because I'm a long-tiem consumer, and this deal has all the hallmarks of something designed to offer me less for my dollar rather than more.

That means I expect them to keep blocking third-party Internet application traffic, like VoIP traffic from Skype or Vonage ,and video traffic from any number of online video streamers, and peer-to-peer traffic from BitTorrent et. al. They're doing it now, either openly in the case of a company like SBC, or covertly (meaning it's semi-confirmed rumor) in the case of Optimum Online, Comcast and Verizon.

Once they've blocked or damaged this traffic, they'll want to come out with similar services under their own brand names for their own pricing models. They think this will force their existing customers to use them for these add-on services rather than someone else. It's a method of business for which most folks condemn Microsoft, because Remond's been doing it for some time, but which almost every big company will resort to when the chips are down. And, for most IP bandwidth providers, make no mistake, they think the chips are down--way down. Down like it's a rumble in the street with bricks, knives and zip guns.

In their heads, by following this model, they retain their customers. In effect, giving them nowhere else to go if they want to access VoIP, IPTV, wireless media streaming and similar services. This model is doomed to failure long-term, but it's in their nature and their history to try it anyway. It's also written on the wall, since most of them are halfway there.

What we need is another form of bandwidth provision. While I'm not sure how well municpal Internet service will work for things like local tech support, I do love the idea at least from the standpoint that the wire is impartial. Philadelphia doesn't want to offer VoIP or IPTV. They just want to Web-enable their town. If we can get the pipe fat enough, then it once again can become an even playing field for innovators offering services like IPTV or IP voice.

Right now, the same guys providing the pipe are the same guys providing the services, with a few exceptions. If you're Verizon and you've spent X gadjillion bucks on enabling VoIP infrastructure for profit, you really can't blame them for freaking out when Skype offers it for free--and uses Verizon's own network to deliver the service. That's painful. Now Skype is backed by a multi-billion dollar company, eBay. Verizon execs must understandably be going nuts.

So they do the natural thing, which is to find a way to sabotage eBay/Skype's services over their networks. Make the service buggy enough to be worthless or block it entirely if they can get local legislation to allow it. (Yes, most of that's rumor right now and I'm using Verizon's name only because it's the first one on my mind not because they've been proven by anyone to be doing anything dodgy on their networks [freaking lawyers]. But try running Skype or Vonage over various service providers and you will see significant and repeatable performance differences.)

Who gets caught in the middle? We do. Which is why I'm not as happy as Oliver Starr about this deal. To me, it just portends another series of dark days in which big providers force us to use their third-rate services rather than allowing us to choose the best product based on innovation. Because you know that Verizon's IPTV or streaming media or music download services won't be nearly as broad or slick as the same services offered by companies who specialize in them. To a broadband provider, these aren't core services. They aren't in those businesses to make thier bottom lines. They're only there to block competitors and keep their customers from mutiny. That means they'll do the bare minimum they can to implement the service and keep it running--especially in the short term.

Which brings us to where I started. That it's going to suck.

Wired News Feature on Municipal WiFi

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 19:39:46 GMT

There are some municipalities (notably right near me in NYC) where the big broadband providers are petitioning the courts to make municipal WiFi illegal, but that's not stopping many other cities.

Wired is running a 4-part feature on WiFi's spread across the universe, with a good piece by Michael Grebb on cities like Philadielphia that are beginning projects to cover their entire jurisidictions wth free or cheap WiFi access.

Hey, NYC: Listen up. Bryant Park is a perfect example--now I want the same thing somewhere with a roof.

Scottish Schools Build Digital Playground

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:02:08 GMT

Scottish schools are going all share the same network. That is a realy cool and noble idea, but no one should be surprised when it turns into a hi-tech playground, filled with file-sharers, movie-downloaders, and script-kiddies looking to shut down the network. Not that these things can't be educational. Of course, the BBC sees a kinder, gentler possibility:

The system will also feature tools to help users share ideas, build online communities and to set up video and audio conferences in different parts of the country, or across the world.

Say, is that what Spaces is for?

When Wireless Outperforms Wires

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 18:35:48 GMT

Airgo Networks announced its Gen 3 MIMO chipsets today, which are capable of reaching blazing 240 Mbps data transfers rates. MIMO has been around since 2003, but only now are we seeing wireless products with big performance increases. MIMO also tends to work better at longer distances, so soon your wireless network really will cover the whole house. Not many people have heard of it yet, but MIMO could be the next WiFi.

What Does $2.6 Billion Feel Like?

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 13:43:08 GMT

There are lots of stories about eBay's purchase of Skype, but The New York Times describes the effect on the developers that have been running Skype for the last few years. “Everybody feels quite elevated here,” said Jaan Tallinn, a senior developer for the company. Yup, $2.6 billion will do that

China Locks Out Skype Users

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:01:42 GMT

It shouldn't come as any surprise that China is preventing Skype users from making phone calls over China Telecom. The real kicker is why. This isn't some Communist strategy to keep the populace uninformed and out of touch. (Although they certainly have done that before.) Nope, this is about money. "All the reports agree that this is a commercial, not a political move," reports the Register. They just want to protect their huge, state-run Telco.

How much money is at stake? VoIP services took nearly three percent of China Telecom's total revenue last year. Ouch!

Honey Pot for Hackers

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:31:20 GMT

In the interest of national security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has created an index of all the security vulnerabilities in popular products. The institute will also make the information available as a XML feed, so developers can track security flaws as soon as they are discovered. The National Vulverability Database has some 12,000 vulnerabilities listed and adds 10 more each day. Every security hole in one place. This is a great service for developers and security-minded consumers. I wonder who else will be stopping by.

[Found on FCW.com]

Weekend Project: Unwire Your Neighborhood

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:26:20 GMT

Last week, we had some cable modem issues and we were forced to bum a WiFi signal from a friendly, or clueless, neighbor. We found several and we are grateful. In the interest of creating more open networks, "Popular Science" has posted clear, step-by-step directions for creating a public WiFI network. Just keep in mind, most ISPs don't want you doing this; they would rather charge each subscriber individually. Still, it makes a great weekend project. To feel even better about yourself, set the network up next to a school. It is that time of year.

WiFi Security Demo

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 17:33:38 GMT

The Filter's suggestion that it is OK to borrow a neighbor's wireless access drew some concern among readers. Including this note from Elizabeth:

"There's an interesting demo.....on WiFi hackers. The demo illustrates how exposed we are. It's worth a look. If you're interested, take a look at http://www.lucidlink.com/wireless_hackers.asp."

The tone of the demo is a tad alarmist, but it is a pretty good primer on wireless security anyway. Thanks for the link, Elizabeth!

Good Neighbors Share WiFi

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 19:08:08 GMT

Three days into the Tech Filter launch and our cable modem has gone buggy. We have generally been happpy with RCN as a broadband provider. It has been a year since our last service call and the 10Mbps connection is a godsend. Still, it is tough trying to upload posts when the connection drops every 90 seconds. The technician comes tomorrow, which is a very long time to be offline. Until then we are going to drag out the notebook and try to poach a neighbor's WiFi signal. As John Dvorak explains here there is nothing wrong with helping yourself to a little of your neighbor's network.