Gerry Blackwell

Network attached storage (NAS) , hard drives that you attach directly to your network rather than to one computer on the network, make good sense as a solution for sharing files among users and backing up computers in a small office. Most hard drive vendors and many network vendors now sell NAS appliances designed for […]

When Oklahoma-based Pioneer Telephone Cooperative installs a new IPTV subscriber, technicians typically rewire the customer’s home from top to bottom. They run standard Ethernet Cat-5 cabling through walls from the Pioneer network interface device (NID) outside to the modem in a home office or den, and from there to three TV set-top boxes in different […]

It’s not news that the cellular and Wi-Fi domains are converging, but nowhere is it more evident than in the world of in-building wireless coverage. When building owners or cellular carriers undertake projects to extend wide-area coverage into multi-tenant skyscrapers today, they typically look to design a network that incorporates all possible wireless technologies, including […]

A quiet revolution is underway in hospitals, and it’s partly thanks to Wi-Fi. The cacophony of public address announcements and equipment alarms that once disturbed the rest of sick people is being replaced by blessed silence as hospitals turn to wireless communications – increasingly Wi-Fi – for paging clinicians and sending them alerts. Now hospitals […]

You might think that municipal Wi-Fi is only for rich, tech-savvy cities in the economic heartlands, but Iqaluit, nestled beside Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island in Canada’s frozen Arctic, recently became the northernmost community in the world to launch a free citywide Wi-Fi access service. Of course, it only took one access point to cover […]

After almost three years of testing Wi-Fi Internet access on trains, VIA Rail Canada, the Canadian national rail operator, and partner Parsons, a diversified U.S. firm that provides business services to railway companies all over North America, have finally pulled the trigger on a commercial deployment of the technology. The partners claim it will be […]

The Canon model, which supports both WEP and WPA for security, will perform some additional wireless tricks eventually. With new firmware scheduled for release in May 2006, you’ll be able to make peer-to-peer wireless connections with other SD430s – or, presumably, future Canon Wi-Fi cameras – and transfer pictures from one to the other. I’m […]

SkyPilot Networks, a purveyor of Wi-Fi-based mesh network technology for rural access and now muni Wi-Fi, is waging a guerilla marketing war against its mostly bigger, better-resourced competitors by recruiting ISP customers to distribute, support and champion its wares. The latest example is Costa del Sol Online SL (CDSO), a network operator in Malaga, Spain […]

Dr. Frederick Gilbert, President of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, says he first made the decision to avoid using wireless technology on his campus seven years ago. He was and remains concerned about possible health effects from exposure to even the low levels of RF radiation emitted by Wi-Fi equipment. Data security was […]

Beleaguered proponents of a citywide Wi-Fi network in New York City are desperately trying to make a meal of the thin crust Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw them recently when he reversed his previous position and supported the formation of a task force to look into the idea. It’s not immediately clear what good if any […]

When Cyril Houri and a group of friends he refers to as “GPS alpha geeks” were frustrated by poor satellite reception in the big cities where they lived, they decided to do something about it. The result is Navizon, a wireless positioning system that works on Pocket PC PDAs by triangulating signals from Wi-Fi access […]

Billed as the largest public access Wi-Fi network in a business district in Europe, the wireless project at London’s Canary Wharf, unveiled in August, is indeed impressive and features some interesting and innovative technical and business approaches. But it is also an example of how hype often gets ahead of reality in the Wi-Fi world. […]