Public Phones as WiFi Hotspots... round 2

Almost one year ago I posted on this blog about how operators that have invested in public telephone networks could still use the asset today in the day of prolific mobile phone use.

This was the convergence of two main ideas

Using street lights as Wifi Hotspots, they are everywhere and they are powered. Also as I noted if you combine with broadband over power line (BPL) you also don't need to invest in new cabling and the convenience of no minimal disruption that no digging brings makes this compelling.
After the limited success of Ionica and their fixed wireless network a case for fixed wireless today.

There is a summary available on Telegeography of how TeliaSonera are looking to adapt their network of phone booths to become WiFi hotspots. The math has to make sense as the revenue stream from these assets has to be impacted by mobile use. Though somewhat redundant functionally they still represent real presence for the operator on the high street and so any use that can be found for them must be good.

We are now starting to see the first wave of mobile WiMax devices appear so 802.11 and 802.16 would both be valuable. This adoption of the other network using WiMax and UMA could be Wireless' own VoIP disruption.

Comments

PC over IP - The Teradici Effect

Teradici are hoping to blur the lines between PC and Data Centre. Their solution allows a use to view multiple screens and control the blade PC over IP. This is kind of like the dumb terminals with a new edgy deployment. The intention is that all of the computing power is performed offsite in a centralized area, the Data Centre, and this will save on power and maintenance costs as the engineers are co-located with the hardware and therefore don't have to go out to the client site for basic maintenance. The Teradici Company Article found in the Wall Street Journal

e-Olympics

This year's Olympics should be the best ever for coverage. Fring are looking for onsite commentators and as a means to encourage people are offering a 3.5G phone as your reporters tool. I hope that this will be the games of the micro blog. The potential for services like Twitter or Jaiku to open up access to the games in a way never seen before is encouraging. Essentially there are three dimensions to the games: Nation Event Athlete Typically broadcast of the games ha content defined by the nation. The USA channels closely follow the USA squad, the same for UK, NZ Australia etc. This is targeted at the national pride. For those people who are actively engaged in an event themselves, marathon, it's the event that is king. There will still be an element of "my country" but this is equally balanced by "my sport". The final element is the followers of a specific athlete. Friends, family and fans may elect to follow all of the events surrounding a person. ...

Cashless Society? Micropayments up for disruption

New Zealand, although small, is a long way ahead in many aspects compared to the UK. Some of their new schemes are being adopted by the UK government. What I remember from my first trip here 6 years ago was the impact of the EFTPOS system. Long before the UK was using Chip and PIN New Zealand was moving towards a cashless society with the ubiquitous EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale) cards and terminals. The system is good and robust. But the one place you can't find it for some of those micropayments is on the public transport system. Buses would benefit from some form of electronic payment system. There is one drawback of the system in it's implementation today, the time taking to pay. For small payments, say a Moro (think Mars) Bar at the local dairy (corner shop) is the time taken for the system to recognise the card and for the user to select the account (Cheque, Savings or Card) and input their PIN. This would certainly slow down the boarding process...

Orient Expression

Search This Blog