Gerry Blackwell

A reviewer no doubt should judge products strictly on their own merits and not on how well they meet his own personal needs and expectations. But in the case of the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, that was almost impossible for me. The N800, a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled handheld, pen-based computer, is a very cool, if […]

John Scrivner, president and CEO of Mt. Vernon Net, a wireless ISP in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, is one of those salt-of-the-earth guys that every industry needs but not every industry is blessed with—a visionary, an activist, a tireless organizer and a successful entrepreneur. Besides running his company, a pioneering WISP […]

Wi-Fi, the war on terrorism and federal funding: it’s a killer combination. Two hot buttons to open the big government cash register in D.C. When the state of North Carolina went looking for federal funding to help launch its new Defense and Security Technology Accelerator (DSTA), a business incubator in Fayetteville, it was no coincidence […]

MeshDynamics, a relative newcomer to the Wi-Fi mesh network equipment market, made a splash recently – albeit a small one – when it announced its first commercial deployment, a 13-node network for Enchanted Circle Communications in tiny Red River, New Mexico, a ski resort. Enchanted Circle installed the network a year ago. It wasn’t so […]

“Draft N” wireless network gear such as the Nfiniti products from Buffalo Technology, which are available in stores today, offer a somewhat dubious value proposition. You get faster wireless networking and wider coverage now — theoretically — but run a risk that the equipment you buy will never comply with the final 802.11n standard and […]

Another small startup is making a ruckus with technology it claims can solve Wi-Fi interference problems. Earlier this summer, Rotani, a Scottsdale, Arizona company, released reference designs for its patent-pending AirReferee technology, which it says makes 11g Wi-Fi networks interference-resistant and able to deliver consistent throughput of 35 Mbps even in densely populated wireless environments. […]

Muni Wi-Fi was slower to take off in the UK than stateside, but momentum in Britain is beginning to build now. Telabria, an interesting company that we last heard from a couple of years ago when it was deploying Wi-Fi networks in small-town southern England, is one of several key players. Telabria is both an […]

Cohda Wireless Cohda was spun out of the Institute for Telecommunications Research (ITR) at the University of South Australia in Adelaide in 2002. Last fall, the company took on an American CEO, Martin Suter, and opened its headquarters in Orlando, Florida. It has been adapting technology originally developed at the Institute for proprietary networks and […]

With all the unease in some American cities and some political circles about the notion of local government getting involved in providing wireless infrastructure – or just fostering development of infrastructure – it’s interesting to look at what one of the most successful cities in the world is doing in this area.

The Compact Wireless-G Internet Video Camera from Linksys (model: WVC54GC), about $100, is worth a look if you’re in the market for a relatively inexpensive Wi-Fi video camera you can use to monitor your home when you’re away. Wi-Fi surveillance cameras come in many different shapes and sizes these days and with different features for […]

A recent merger of three mid-size regional wireless service providers may be the template for more to come as the maturing WISP industry continues to consolidate. But don’t expect a lot of chest thumping from the new company, Sparkplug Inc. It makes no boasts about taking the world by storm. Its legacy is careful, sustainable […]

Somebody at Bandspeed did the math last year and figured out that the business mass market for wireless LAN gear – small firms with fewer than 100 employees, of which there are approximately 7.7 million in North America – was a vast and largely untapped opportunity. So the company developed its AirMaestro Platform to go […]