Orient Expression

While many cities have already dabbled with, and in many cases shutdown, city WiFi projects Bangkok is just rolling theirs out . The speeds will be low, around the 64K mark, as the service is designed to allow employees to check their email and use IM. This is all in an effort to give people an alternative to the daily commute in the time of high fuel prices, lack of supply for NGV cars (Taxis) and the general congestion problems on the capital's roads. Having worked from home on ADSL and dealing with large attachments typically sent my email today the low speed will be impacting on adoption. Overall I wish the operator every success but feel that the service is doomed from the start. The main concern is how much business, even general business, can be conducted in a hands off approach in Thailand. The Wai is still a powerful sales and business tool. Face-to-face meetings will continue to be the core of the decision making process and distance from the Pu Yai's office ties i...

Last year saw the first mention/ promise of city wide WiMax in Milton Keynes, UK. The combination of ConnectMK and Freedom4 are offering WiMax to residents and small businesses with synchronous speeds of 8Mb/s. The package is being targeted at home workers who need more upload capacity as they go about their work. This is being touted as the f irst commercial application of WiMax in the UK. The main differentiator that is being highlighted is no need for a BT line required to support traditional ADSL services. This is after successful trials in both Milton Keynes and Warwick. Next stop Manchester .

There has been lots of discussion on Kindle and eBooks in general. Besides the obvious use for reference books by the IT industry, in particular IT consultants that work onsite a lot, there is another use for eBooks and gadgets. Geek Travel. Travel is an obvious target. Many people take the opportunity to take 6+ months off and travel the world. Guide books are heavy, bulky objects. There is a rich trade in swapping books at the natural convergence points around the world. Some people plan very carefully and take the required pages with them. But if you've only got specific pages and you want to wander off your trail you're up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Why not then take all of your books, and some for countries that you might not actually have a plan, with you on your eBook Reader. Something like Kindle , iLiad or Sony Reader . Go get your travel books from Rough Guide , Travelfish or search through Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree project . While you're...

The Solutions and Content Exhibition Korea (SEK) has just finished and there has been some focus on Korea's own Wireless Broadband (Wibro). WiMax, as it's more globally recognized, is very active as a technology in Korea and they represent the bleeding edge of the use and deployment of the 802.16 standard. The Bangkok Posts Tony Waltham was in Seoul for SEK and you can see his write up of his experience with the WiMax Muni Net from this link . Samsung took the opportunity to show off there newest Wibro phone, the PDA M8100. As it's only available in Korea today the only write up from the vendor I could find was in Korean so I can share the write up on UberGizmo . I might be heading to Korea for a couple of months in August so it will be good to experience Wibro first hand. If it happens expect some write ups here. For a round up of SEK read Tony Waltham's article in the Bangkok Posts Database weekly supplement.

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 b...

Milton Keynes is famous for two, maybe three things: Lots and lots and lots of roundabouts Concrete Cows XScape -indoor snow zone amongst other things Now it is set to become the site of the first commercial use of WiMax in the UK (as far as I can see). There's been a lot of buzz about this so here are a few of the blog ping echoes: Andy Aramson VoIP Watch iTWire The Register Gizmodo (Warning! includes Concrete Cows) James Enck EuroTelcoblog ;) Pretty upbeat news off the back of the Sprint announcements that it's 4G network will be mobile WiMax based. A recent article in Telecom Asia here lays out the developing business case for WiMax depsite the pessimism from the old school (but no surprises there).

Paul Jardine once coined the phrase "the other network" when talking about the mobile operators in the UK spending vast amounts of money to build out their networks when there was already a network that could (with some thought) have been used. By this he meant the slowly decaying Public Phone network. Now I am working with a fixed line operator here in Thailand that still maintain a pay phone infrastructure, this is barely used due to the proliferation of mobile phones; a trend that is bound to be repeated in countries all over the world. So what can the Telco's do about it? In my converging ideas posting I highlighted the innovation that I had long been thinking of that New Zealand Telecom are driving forward with. This was the natural expansion of two previous ideas that I had expanded on and is a WiFi twist on the other network idea of Paul. The basic concept is that the pay phone becomes a node in the MuniNet (Municipal Network). This could equally be using ...

The recent announcement by The Cloud to launch City-wide WiFi will herald a new era in the UK and Europe. OK so the basic message is pretty much the Muni-Net story widely commented on; no great news there, why the interest? I think it's pretty smart of them to partner with BT in the early stages as this is where the biggest opponent could come from, although further deregulation in the UK to further increase competition will do that anyway. The real interest for me is the pressing need for roaming agreements between WiFi partners and in this case the ability to roam from one country (UK) to another (e.g. Sweden). In most cases this should be a simple fixed fee, unlimited usage deal but nothing I've seen yet determines the pricing model; I wait with anticipation.....

Scotland once again rises as developers of great technology (OK so it's been a while since the TV but what the hey). This article from the BBC highlights the basic idea of using lampposts in Dundee to provide WiFi. I think there is a gap here in that the system uses solar power. I think it would be a great use of BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) as all of the lampposts are already plugged in to the power grid anyway. I'm currently in Taiwan where WiFi is prolific, in fact in Hotels it's free. I don't know how sustainable this will be as people like me using Skype over the free WiFi must be starting to eat into the revenue stream of calling out of the hotel, but it's great while it lasts. Especially given Paul Jardine's recent problems in Portugal . Still even here in Taipei there are nowhere near close to getting some sort of public network and like in many major cities around the world space is at a premium. Something like the Internet Lamppost could rea...

2006 is going to see an explosion in the activity of Municipal, Muni, Networks. This article from the BBC states that IP access is becoming a basic amenity, in the same way as water and electricity. Philly is the next to be online; with a 135 square mile network being built out by Earthlink and turned on next year. Not far behind is San Francisco with, you've guessed it, Google as one of the prime bidders. They believe they can take their successful advertising revenue stream to provide free IP access to the proletariat. On a brief aside the partnership of Google and NASA, can we expect to see Google in Space? With the benefits of WiFi access to schools, hospitals and police forces around the US it won't take long for a few well publicized examples of how access helped them for the ball to start rolling. I would agree with Paul that the secret to success is a partnership with the existing carriers. Otherwise the likes of SprintNextel could easily freeze the new comers out. Th...