Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Today is Mobile Worker Wednesday and I wanted to lead you to yet another smartphone device/OS report. Smartphones have climbed to penetrate 25% of the market, according to Nielsen.
The NPD Group announced today that Android OS in handsets accounted for 33 percent of all smartphones purchased in the second quarter in the U.S. RIM accounted for 28 percent and Apple had 22 percent. This means that the Android operating system has topped both RIM and Apple in sales in Q2 of 2010. For the first time since Q4 of 2007, RIM has been knocked from the top spot as the top selling OS in the US. Motorola and HTC have been helping to drive that growth.
RIM still owns the overall subscriber share, but Android has strong momentum at this point. Of course, this will probably all shift again once the Windows Phone 7 handsets start coming out or if those iPhone-wanters really go out and purchase the iPhone that they crave.
Android as the flavor of the month >>
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
It was a long time coming, hotly anticipated and may not have quite lived up to expectations. I’m not talking about England’s World Cup campaign, but about inflight Wi-Fi. According to recently released statistics, less than 10% of people are using inflight Wi-Fi services; a figure which appears quite low, when you consider how indispensable the internet has become.
So has demand for inflight Wi-Fi been overestimated or are there barriers beyond awareness that need to be overcome? For leisure travellers, it may well be that offline entertainment, in the form of games and DVD’s, may be a perfectly good substitute for the online experience. However, for business travellers, an internet connection would appear to be more important for access to online information and email etc. – particularly on a long-haul flight.
Not surprisingly, cost is cited as being the biggest barrier to adoption. Prices have come down since the first services were launched but there is still a cost involved. Consumers will vote with their feet (or mice) and once the price reaches a certain point, expect to see uptake soar. For businesses, the cost barrier would also appear to be important but for different reasons. Inflight connectivity is yet another mobility expense for enterprises to cover, and it is unclear whether organisations have already considered this within their strategies. Consequently, there may be end-users out there unable to connect inflight or unsure whether charges can be expensed back.
We announced our partnership with GoGo a few months ago, aware that inflight connectivity is just another part of the enterprise mobility puzzle that organisations will be looking to manage. In the same way that internet subscriptions in hotels and airports have often been swallowed up by the mobility ‘black-budget’ when not properly managed, inflight Wi-Fi has the potential to exacerbate this issue. Of course, properly managed and provisioned, inflight Wi-Fi has significant potential for enterprises in terms of productivity gains and all-round responsiveness of employees.
There is the other school of thought that says mobile employees actually enjoy a few hours of escape from work when they fly! While this may well be the case, there are times when inflight Wi-Fi borders on a necessity, so it is reassuring to know it is an option, even if this doesn’t mean you are anywhere near as productive at 30,000 feet as you are on terra firma. And to counter that argument further, I’ve been on many flights trapped next to people from whom a spreadsheet or webmail would have actually been a welcome distraction!
Inflight Wi-Fi – Still Grounded or About to Take Off? >>
Friday, June 25th, 2010
Barbara Nelson, CTO
I just got back from the 17th Wireless Broadband Alliance summit, in sunny San Diego. The event was co-located with the Wi-Fi Alliance, and during the first day there was a joint Wi-Fi Ecosystem Summit. At the summit, the Wireless Broadband Alliance also welcomed six new members, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cisco, KT and Devicescape. (Korea Telecom had previously been a member of their WBA, but let their membership lapse for a while, when their focus moved away from Wi-Fi.)
It is hard to believe how much has changed in the WBA since iPass joined in 2008. At the time, the WBA was struggling to be relevant, whereas now it has a marquee membership list, and a new energy to take on a host of new projects, to support the needs of the new members.
So what is triggering the new interest in Wi-Fi? AT&T and Verizon were very clear that their motivation to join the WBA is to ensure that the Wi-Fi networks of the world will support 3G offload. Licensed spectrum is expensive, and the owners of that spectrum are very keen to find ways to offload traffic to unlicensed spectrum, such as the spectrum made available by Wi-Fi providers. Cisco is spearheading an initiative, currently called the Next-Gen Hotspot or Hotspot 2.0, which defines new protocols to enable seamless 3G authentication and secure connectivity on Wi-Fi networks, so that the 3G mobile operators may reliably and securely offload their traffic to the available Wi-Fi networks.
So, what does this mean for the world of Wi-Fi? At a minimum, it provides a compelling new business case to increase the number and quality of Wi-Fi hotspots. Korea Telecom has publicly stated that they plan to have over 42,000 hotspots by the end of 2011, to support their 3W strategy (smartphones that support WCDMA, WiMAX and Wi-Fi). This new growth in Wi-Fi will give iPass customers more places to connect, and a more reliable service, as Wi-Fi providers re-invest in their Wi-Fi infrastructure to satisfy the data-hungry demands of the new smartphones. This is very good news for us.
One very interesting question is how does this renewed interest in Wi-Fi as an alternative network for 3G offload dovetail with the trend we are seeing in the USA, where commercial Wi-Fi networks are being replaced by free Wi-Fi networks. But, that’s a topic for another blog. Stay tuned.
Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi at the WBA >>
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Free Wi-Fi is growing and it’s growing fast, at least here in the U.S. For quite some while, venues of all stripes including airports, hotels, cafes and even trains have been offering free Wi-Fi in some form or fashion. Some have been good at it, while others have stumbled badly, leaving the end user with a burning desire for a paid option that just plain worked.
Things got very interesting earlier this year when McDonald’s announced that they were eliminating their limited-access, paid Wi-Fi option and were “going rogue” with all out free Wi-Fi. We’re not talking about a few venues here and there, but thousands of venues scattered across the county. Add premium coffee to the mix, and you can almost see the cannon ball heading North to Seattle. Not to be outdone, Starbuck’s recently announced they too were going free, and to up the ante, they’ll be providing digital content that would otherwise not be free if you were outside the range of their Wi-Fi signal.
The Starbucks announcement was not entirely surprising. Free Wi-Fi was already becoming increasingly accessible as wired and wireless network operators began offering it to their subscribers either as a source of differentiation or as a response to a competitor’s offering. In addition, the demand for high bandwidth networks has increased with the introduction of smartphones which has led to a 3G capacity crunch in select geographies. This problem will increase even further with the adoption of highly portable touch screen tablets. Some carriers have dealt with the capacity crunch by implementing a 3G offload strategy that allows the end user to easily connect to Wi-Fi hotspots when in range, at no additional cost.
Can the capacity crunch also impact the free Wi-Fi venues? It sure can, and operators should beware.
Back in the “old days” when laptops ruled the world, there was a self-imposed limit to the number of endpoints that voluntarily connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot in a public venue. The café is a prime example. It was highly unlikely that one would connect if they were short on time, couldn’t find an empty table or were running low on battery power with no access to a power outlet. As new portable devices emerge, much of that no longer holds true. For example, lightweight, touch screen tablets that power on instantaneously, have a very long battery life and can be used as easily standing as sitting, will likely result in a spike in the average number of simultaneously connected Wi-Fi endpoints in popular venues. This could lead to a dramatic reduction in the bandwidth available to each device.
Add premium content to the mix and if not done right, it’s entirely possible that the bitter taste in your mouth will not come from the good coffee, but rather, from the bad Wi-Fi.
At iPass, we’ve developed a new platform and service offering that further simplifies the connectivity experience and connects the end user to the best available network whether it be free Wi-Fi, paid Wi-Fi or wireless 3G. In instances where free Wi-Fi has gone bad, we’ve worked with select network operators to provide a private connectivity option that ensures our users have a great experience each time they connect. We also have the flexibility to easily switch a user over to 3G if their device has the required hardware. The end result is they get the best of both worlds–the ability to connect without hassles and with no personal financial liability–the ultimate in free connectivity.
Good coffee, Bad Wi-Fi >>
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Barbara Nelson, CTO
I spent the last few days at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, getting an updated perspective on Apple’s technologies. While there are certainly some very cool technologies, and we look forward to enhancing the iPass products to leverage these new capabilities, there were also some more subtle messages at WWDC. One of these subtle messages is with regard to Wi-Fi.
Buried in the hoopla on the iPhone 4, there is an interesting re-emergence of the importance of Wi-Fi. For many years, people had been predicting the demise of Wi-Fi. Who needs Wi-Fi when you have 3G?
At Apple WWDC, we saw that once again, when 3G isn’t up to the task, we rely on Wi-Fi. During the keynote, Steve Jobs didn’t even attempt to demonstrate his new phone on the cellular network. He ran into some networking difficulties on Wi-Fi, which were caused, ironically, by too many Wi-Fi base stations broadcasting competing radio signals. He said there were over 500 Wi-Fi access points in the main room alone, and didn’t count all the access points in the overflow rooms. When all the bloggers turned off their MiFi devices, the demo went smoothly.
Later on, Steve demonstrated a very cool capability, video chat using FaceTime. Oh, by the way, it only works on Wi-Fi.
Yet again, Wi-Fi comes to the rescue when the cellular networks cannot or will not support the increased data demands of these new applications. Isn’t it good that the Wi-Fi providers didn’t listen to the pundits predicting their early demise? So, when you are on the road, and want to video-chat to your family from your hotel room on your new iPhone, say thanks to all the Wi-Fi providers who are there to support you when the cellular networks let you down.
Wi-Fi re-emerges as important >>
