No Strings Attached

By Mike von Wahlde
Associate Editor, INTERNET TELEPHONY

Recently, my friend Brad and I had dinner at his place in Hoboken before heading back into Manhattan for a long night and early morning on the town. It had been a while since I'd seen him, and this was the first time I'd visited his current digs -- they were spacious, well appointed, and northern exposed. His place was so tech-ed out, in fact, that he had his entertainment and computer systems connected and commanded via a wireless keyboard. I would never complain again if my computer monitor was a 48" Sony HDTV. His place was a dream for audio and technophiles the world over.

The next evening, recovering from our night on the town, I returned to my humble home, pulled out my Vaio and started working. With Emergency Vets on TV and my remote by my side, I started thinking... I sure wish I was hooked up like Brad. Which got me to thinking about wireless around the house, and brought me back to the Bluetooth thing, and the 802.11b thing, and the whole economy and telecom space going to pot thing, and, wellhere we are.

What's Hot With Wi-Fi?
Some people are already calling Wi-Fi one of the saviors that will enable wireless service providers to start reaping revenue -- but is it true? Most important to remember is the ability of users to be pervasively connected, thus creating a need simply because users will become accustomed to this level of connectivity. Simple, easy to use, and easy to set up 802.11b systems will be the driving force in this rollout.

A Wi-Fi "hot spot" is a location that provides high-speed wireless Internet access for people with laptops or handheld computers. These hot spots transmit a high-speed wireless signal that is picked up and recognized by laptops or PDAs equipped with a standard wireless network card.

Airpath Wireless, Inc. has just announced the availability of its new Wi-Fi product, Hot-Spot-In-A-Box. Airpath has designed its Hot-Spot-In-A-Box to include everything needed to install a wireless hot spot -- the network equipment, the end user billing, even a branded portal. As a part of the package, hot spot owners automatically become a part of the Airpath Roaming Network, incorporating their equipment into its growing, worldwide, provider-neutral Wi-Fi network.

By being provider-neutral, Airpath Roaming remains transparent to end users while providing a single-source of network integration for its members. Any telco, ISP, or independent provider that has subscribers can share access to the same equipment or infrastructure. Even more important to providers, customers with existing end users retain control of their branding while being able to offer the benefit of roaming anywhere within the network.

"Our plug-and-play package is low cost, easy-to-install, and includes everything you need to be able to offer the value-added service of high-speed wireless Internet access while generating additional revenue for your property," said Tim Barrett, Vice President of Airpath. "Now anyone with a venue that attracts Wi-Fi users can install a hot spot in less than a week."

FreeThat's A Good Price Point
There are a couple cheap ways into Wi-Fi-dom offered through companies such as Sputnik and Joltage.

Sputnik Gateway Software, a free download for the company's site, was designed with ease of use on the tip of the developer's minds. The Gateway auto-discovers the network and configures itself in minutes, making setup a snap. Sputnik Gateway software also contains a number of high-end security features: a built-in router, firewall, and an SSL-based user authentication system.

"People want access to the Internet and company networks on the go. Wi-Fi is a great way to do this, but there are serious drawback -- lack of security, lack of hot spots, and lack of roaming access across gateways," said David LaDuke, CEO of Sputnik, Inc. "The Sputnik Gateway and upcoming Sputnik Enterprise Gateway will help wireless broadband become ubiquitous by making it easy, secure, inexpensive, and available."

With their user name and password, Sputnik users (Affiliates) can roam across all Sputnik Gateways -- get this -- for free. Sputnik Affiliates always have priority access to bandwidth on their own gateways, letting them share bandwidth without any noticeable decrease in their local network's performance. Paranoia keeping you off the WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network)? The Sputnik Gateway's security features automatically firewall off Affiliates' internal networks from public access.

Joltage also has some free software in the Wi-Fi space. The Joltage software is designed to ramp up the number of high-speed wireless Internet hot spots in public spaces. They have created a revenue-sharing opportunity for hot spot providers wherein Joltage will share revenue with the providers who set up the service using the Joltage platform, as well as pay partners who bring other providers or users to the Joltage Network. The company will provide ultra high-speed wireless broadband Internet service through thousands of public Wi-Fi hot spots based on the 802.11 standard for WLANs.

For the hot spot provider, Joltage offers an easy to use, free, downloadable software platform that integrates with a complete online suite of back-end services including authentication, security, tracking, administration, billing, and payment software. Providers are given the tools necessary to become a micro-ISP, and to begin receiving revenues generated by their hot spots. The provider also has the option of offering free access to their hot spot, and can use the software for tracking purposes.

And Way Down At The Chip Level
Never to be outdone, Intel's new chip, dubbed "Banias," boasts 802.11b support that will eventually be embedded in a laptop Pentium 4. Intel says the Banias chip will be available in 2003. Integrated 802.11b support is expected in late 2003. The Banias chip is only part of Intel's goal of "any time and any place" computing. Intel sees computing and communications converging: "In the future, all computers will communicate and all communication devices will compute," said Intel president and chief operating officer Paul Otellini.

I'm waiting for that day, believe me. And I think my wait will be a lot shorter for a wireless LAN in the house than it will be for a 48" HDTV

Mike von Wahlde welcomes your comments at mvonwahlde@tmcnet.com.