PCCW opens kimono (a little) on UK broadband wireless plans

When the UK’s 15 licenses for fixed wireless broadband ended up in the hands of a single viable bidder in May last year, most European and UK operators shrugged and said so what?

Pacific Century Cyber Works bought 13 of 15 licenses auctioned in the UK last year, by bidding through differently named subsidiaries and later acquired the companies that held the other two, all for a total cost of about $14m.

pccw uk broadband wireless

http://www.freebyte.com/programming/

http://wordpress.org/

http://i-neighbors.org/
http://www.meetup.com/
Upcoming.org
eatlunch.at

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Here’s a theory you hear a lot these days: “Microsoft is finished. As soon as Linux makes some inroads on the desktop and web applications replace desktop applications, the mighty empire will topple.”

Although there is some truth to the fact that Linux is a huge threat to Microsoft, predictions of the Redmond company’s demise are, to say the least, premature. Microsoft has an incredible amount of cash money in the bank and is still incredibly profitable. It has a long way to fall. It could do everything wrong for a decade before it started to be in remote danger, and you never know… they could reinvent themselves as a shaved-ice company at the last minute. So don’t be so quick to write them off. In the early 90s everyone thought IBM was completely over: mainframes were history! Back then, Robert X. Cringely predicted that the era of the mainframe would end on January 1, 2000 when all the applications written in COBOL would seize up, and rather than fix those applications, for which, allegedly, the source code had long since been lost, everybody would rewrite those applications for client-server platforms.

…

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

Wi-Fi hotspots simply too expensive
By Jan Libbenga

Published Wednesday 2nd June 2004 10:32 GMT
Wi-Fi hotspots will only meet the needs of small customer groups and for the majority of hotspots there will be little or no return of investment. So says the Scientific Institute for Communication Services or WIK, Germany’s leading research and advisory institute for communication services.

The institute expects a consolidation process within the next few years. More importantly, it warns that users find the tariffs of public Wi-Fi services – 5 to 10 euros per hour – simply too high.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/02/wi_fi_hotspots_expensive/

More UK train firms commit to on-board Wi-Fi
By Tony Smith
Published Tuesday 25th May 2004 09:19 GMT

..
Together, Virgin and the other three operators account for 20 per cent of the UK rail industry, which comprises 29 TOCs, including Virgin’s two and GNER. They run over 700 trains, all of which will be gaining Wi-Fi support over the next four years, Broadreach said.

In a survey of 1600 UK rail passengers conducted in March and April this year on behalf of Broadreach, some 78 per cent of business travellers said they are interested in using Wi-Fi on train journeys. And 72 per cent said the provision of such services would persuade them to take trips by train rather than by car or aircraft.

Since most of them are willing to pay up to £12 for the privilege, depending on the lenth of the journey, that’s a big motivation for TOCs to roll-out wireless Internet technology. Around half of their business customers already carry a laptop on board – almost a quarter take a PDA with them. How many of those devices are already WLAN-enabled is not known, however.
..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/25/broadreach_rail_wifi/

boingo.com day/month model
trustive.com base fee + time model
http://www.thecloud.net/mycloud/
Broadreach Networks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/12/broadreach_to_bring_major_mobile/
Freespot
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/05/27/free_wifi_punted_to_pubs/
—
bitbash.co.uk/

Directory
http://ukwifidir.world-of-adsl.com/

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/

Posted by michael on Friday May 28, @09:27AM
from the some-hacking-required dept.

DamnYankee writes “Robert X. Cringley predicts the coming demise of the landline telco monopolies from the grassroots encroachment of VoIP and Linux on the latest generation of Wifi routers. According to Bob, ‘The result is a system with economics with which a traditional local phone company simply can’t compete’. With Linux capabilities and builtin VoIP any Mom and Pop can become the local equivalent of a cellular phone company for the price of $79 Wifi router. Now how is Verizon going to compete with that? Get the full scoop from the man himself.”

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/05/28/1249235.shtml?tid=106&tid=137&tid=185&tid=193&tid=215

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040527.html

..
[b”>What is NetShare?[/b”>
WiFi NetShare from Speakeasy allows you–the tech-savvy Speakeasy DSL member–to offer your neighbors broadband service via the new WiFi revolution. They get broadband service; you reduce your monthly fees.

http://www.speakeasy.net/netshare/learnmore/

[b”>FXO kit[/b”>
http://www.sipphone.com/
http://sipura.com/products/spa3000.htm
http://www.pcphoneline.com/
http://voxilla.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=70&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0

[b”>Great VOIP Info site – running tikiwiki[/b”>
http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php

By evilbunny
from the free phone calls department, Section News
Posted on Sun May 30th, 2004 at 03:51:28 AM PST

So you’ve heard about this enum thing-a-majig and you’re dying to try it out but don’t have a spare linux box to throw a copy of Asterisk or SER up to abuse it to your hearts content! What’s a geek to do??

Well there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel, E164.org presents Like2Fone.com, a simple yet effective SIP proxy service that’s capable of enum lookups from the e164.org zone. To make use of the service, all you need to do is bring a SIP software or hardware phone, make a couple of changes and off you go! It’s literally that simple!

Like2Fone.com isn’t like most other services out there on the net, when you go to sign up you won’t be issued yet another randomly allocated number, instead you’ll be able to verify your phone number and have that linked directly to your account.

We don’t think 100 different numbers for 100 different services is a very easy thing to keep track of. However E164.org makes it possible to track all those other numbers with a single number, and not a new number, but your existing phone number.

http://freenetworks.org/
http://www.like2fone.com/
http://www.E164.org/

Locustworld
http://www.locustworld.com/
http://www.fastlineinternet.com/ – a US connection

The founder, David Peterson, saw the benefit of a wireless system that would be self organizing. After months of research, he found Jon Anderson of Locustworld. Jon’s vision of an open source system built on user input and live testing appealed to David and a working relationship was formed.

http://www.ultramesh.com/

Mesh Image Boot
http://www.cuwireless.net/

Mesh-on-a-WRT54G
http://sveasoft.cyberemail.org/

WRT54G (More)
http://openwrt.ksilebo.net/
http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LinksysWrt54g
http://h.vu.wifi-box.net/

HotSpot Boot
http://www.lessnetworks.com/

Public IP’s ZoneCD
http://www.publicip.net/

Gateway authorisation
http://nocat.net/

Linux LiveCD Router
http://www.wifi.com.ar/english/cdrouter.html

HotSpot Boot Mac
http://www.linspot.com/ (see FAQ)

Round up article on HotSpots
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3357611

What are WiFi phones?

WiFi based telephones who utilize Voice-over-IP technology to make calls worldwide at no or low costs are already available:

http://www.calypsowireless.com/
http://www.pulverinnovations.com/
http://www.samsung.com/tw/
http://www.commtechwireless.com/
http://www.wifiphone.org/products.html
Cisco
Motorla
Nokia

See http://www.linspot.com/businessmodel.html

A good portal:
http://freenetworks.org/

TheTechLounge writes “This is Part II of a series of three editorial articles examining current digital photography hardware, as well as my views of what is to come. In this segment I will be focusing on build, size, weight and ergonomics of camera bodies, as well as the size, weight, function and versatility of the glass strapped to the front of it. If you haven’t already, you may want to read Part I first.”

part 1
part 2
part 3

Clever geometry is the basis of a new material that is said to be ideal for secure data encryption and dense optical information storage [Adv. Mater., 16, 516 (2004)”>.

The material consists of a lattice of onionlike spheres in which the particle core and its layers each contain a different dye. The material can hold four or more pieces of information in one spot—not just two as in binary optical data storage. And it opens a door to high-density three-dimensional optical data storage.

ENCAPSULATED In a three-dye system, core, shell, and matrix are labeled with separate dyes.

“The approach is really simple,” says lead researcher Eugenia Kumacheva, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto, who worked with postdocs Ilya Gourevich and Hung H. Pham and microscopist James E. N. Jonkman. They start with colored colloids—polymeric nanospheres labeled with a dye—for example, an ultraviolet dye. Then they envelop the nanosphere, what Kumacheva calls the core, with a shell of another polymer labeled with a dye that has a spectrum entirely distinct from the first—say, a visible dye. Any number of dye-polymer shells can be added. The last shell then becomes the matrix that holds the layered particles.

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2004

April 19,2004
Volume 82, Number 16
p. 10

Montreal Parking Meters Run Linux

Posted by michael on Tuesday April 20, @05:06PM from the working-for-the-man dept.

jbecherv writes “According to LinuxDevices.com, new-fangled Montreal parking meters run embedded Linux (Google Cache). The City of Montreal is planning to roll out 500 to 800 wireless, solar-powered parking payment stations based on embedded Linux. There is even a device profile (Google Cache) that show some details about the meters… These meters run kernel 2.4.19 on a 206MHz StrongARM SA-1110. Each system has 64MB of RAM, boots from a CF device, and is networked wirelessly via GPRS.”

Click here for SlashDot original article

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/80/neweconomy.html

http://www.gnu.org/directory/webauth/misc/relax.html

Wireless Street Lamps for Traffic Monitoring

Posted by michael on Thursday January 15, @10:48AM
from the one-big-hotspot dept.

RMH101 writes “The Register has a story about a UK initiative to create a country-wide wireless data network using street lamps. It’s come to pass through a government initiative to monitor all cars’ speed and location, all the time, everywhere. The company involved, Last Mile, are proposing an intelligent mesh of smart street lamps embedded with storage and wireless networking to create 200MBit network access across the UK, including remote areas not reachable by conventional broadband. Work is due to start this year.”

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/01/15/1410253.shtml?tid=137&tid=158&tid=193&tid=99
Continue reading →

The Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (2002/58/EC)

directive_on_privacy_electronic_communications

Summary of Changes

The new Directive:

replaces existing definitions for telecommunications services and networks with new definitions for electronic communications and services to ensure technological neutrality and clarify the position of e-mail and use of the internet;

enables the provision of value added services based on location and traffic data, subject to the consent of subscribers (for example, location based advertising to mobile phone users);
removes the possibility for a subscriber to be charged for exercising the right not to appear in public directories;

introduces new information and consent requirements on entries in publicly available directories, including a requirement that subscribers are informed of all the usage possibilities of publicly available directories – e.g. reverse searching from a telephone number in order to obtain a name and address;

extends controls on unsolicited direct marketing to all forms of electronic communications including unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE or Spam) and SMS to mobile telephones; UCE and

SMS will be subject to a prior consent requirement, so the receiver is required to agree to it in advance, except in the context of an existing customer relationship, where companies may continue to email or SMS to market their own similar products on an ‘opt-out’ basis;
specifies that Member States may introduce provisions on the retention of traffic and location data for law enforcement purposes;

introduces controls on the use of cookies on websites. Cookies and similar tracking devices will be subject to a new transparency requirement – anyone that employs these kinds of devices must provide information on them and allow subscribers or users to refuse to accept them if they wish.

Jan. 13, 2004—EPCglobal, the organization that is commercializing Electronic Product Code technology, has awarded Internet and telecommunications infrastructure services provider VeriSign a contract to manage the directory for looking up EPC numbers on the Internet.
…

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/735/1/1/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/PHP/Scripts/Link_Management/

Booby – PHP Bookmarks/Favorites and contacts management (and other stuff). Booby is a multiuser, multilanguage, fully themeable web-based desktop application which provides online management for bookmarks/favorites, contacts, todo’s, notes and news feeds.

Directory Search – Multi-level category directory, integrated search engine, powerful control panel. [Free and commercial versions”>

PhpDig – A search engine written in PHP that uses a MySQL database backend. It features indexing of both static and dynamic pages and full text indexing.