Hotspot Hits for October 10, 2003

  • Paragon Data Systems of Cleveland, Ohio, says it has created a 217,800 square foot hotspot next to the city hall at Strawbridge Plaza — they say it’s now the largest in the downtown area. The hotspot is free to the public. The company used its own bi-directional AireBoost product with an antenna and a single Intermec access point to generate the radio frequencies covering the area. — October 10, 2003
  • Wi-Fi broadband service provider MyZones (which made its debut at the Munich Wi-Fi Planet Conference) is now offering service to consumers throughout Germany. You can buy broadband service through them, or if you have broadband, just get a WLAN hardware The company can provide a Netgear access point and USB adapter so users can setup a secure home WLAN which can be shared with neighbors, who you charge for the access (subsidizing your own access). MyZones customers can use any MyZones WLAN to roam around on. The Wi-Fi hardware and 12 months of MyZones service comes in a starter kit for 179 euro. Broadband DSL service is extra. The company, which is headquartered in Manchester, England, is offering a 30-day free trial. — October 9, 2003

  • Overseas, hotspots in service stations seem to be the rage much as coffe shops are in the U.S. Norwegian oil company Statoil and the ICA supermarket chain from Sweden co-own Statoil Detaljhandel AS, which operates service stations (what we in the States would call a mini-mart with gas and groceries) in Norway. The company has announced it will be putting Cisco Aironet 1200 series access points into 300 of its 490 sites around that country to turn them into “Norway’s most ambitious WLAN project to date.” The 300 sites already have DSL for backhaul. The service will be run by Telenor Mobil . Telenor recently joined the Mobile Alliance of nine companies looking to spread wireless connectivity across Europe. — October 7, 2003
  • Using WAP to find Wi-Fi? The Wi-Fi Alliance today made available a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) based application that will let anyone with a WAP-enabled cell phone or PDA find hotspots listed in the Alliance’s Wi-Fi ZONE database. Users can bookmark the URL http://wap.wi-fizone.org in their phone, and from there define a country, state, and city to get a list of available public access locations. The Wi-Fi ZONE list currently boasts 6000 entries from almost 50 countries. A listing is free to any hotspot that uses Wi-Fi Certified products that wants to sign on. — October 6, 2003
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