Wired Towns builds high performance public Wi-Fi Hot Zones. Our gear of choice comes from Altai Technologies, a Hong Kong-based company that is otherwise in 50 countries around the world. They are barely known in the United States, but Wired Towns is doing everything it can to change that.

We deployed Altai in Times Square for Yahoo! and in Union Square and Rockefeller Center as well. We brought Altai to Lemcon Networks, our wireless network integrator partner, and had Lemcon become both a distributor and an integrator of Altai.

Altai may not always be the best choice in Wi-Fi networking solutions, but for the past four years they have been — better than Cisco, Ruckus, Belair. Altai’s solution is superior because they alone have solved a basic problem that plagues all Wi-Fi networks — the fact that the radios on your device — on your iPhone, your Blackberry, your Nexus One, your netbook or laptop — is low powered. An access point may be able to broadcast out to a device, but can a device communicate back, especially in noisy urban environments where there is a lot of interference?

Every time we have deployed Altai, we have seen our traffic and our footprint increase between 5X-10X. That leap in performance for us makes public Wi-Fi possible, makes it cost effective.

Faced with this basic limitation in device radios, people have been building networks that have a high density of smaller access points, often in a mesh topology. The current standard is to have 60 access points per square mile for adequate coverage; ideally no device would be further than several hundred feet from an access point.

But now to achieve adequate coverage, you have also acquired some real problems:

• You have to acquire 60 sites per square mile. If for instance you are mounting on lightpoles, that can get very expensive in a hurry.

• You have to provide each site with electricity.

• You need to get bandwidth to each node. You can either connect each node to the internet — impractical — or build wireless bridges between nodes, such is in a mesh topology, a solution that has a lot of network overhead and capacity issues associated with it.

• You have to manage a network with a lot of nodes. The network, though ideally redundant and self-healing, has a lot of complexity associated with it.

• You have to maintain a network with a lot of nodes. There’s a lot of hardware that can be unplugged, that can break. That’s costly to support.

The Altai solution is unique: Rather than requiring 60 access points per square mile, you can build one central wireless hub — preferably on high ground on a library, a church, a community center — and use that to provide community wireless for a town. 3-4 Altai A8Es Altai A8-E Catalog (Eng) 091014.pdf($8000 list price), each covering 100 degrees, can reach out 1500 feet from that central hub. From there Altai’s C1 repeaters Altai C1 Catalog (Eng) 100105.pdf($168 retail) can connect to the A8E from up to a mile away line of sight in an urban environment, and up to two miles in a rural one. If you pair two C1s, you can make a new hot spot from that.

Let’s say you had 4 A8Es on your hub. You could easily support 25 small Hot Spots per A8E using 50 C1s paired together.. There would be the main footprint — a circle of 1500 foot radius, then the extended footprint with a radius of 1-2 miles filled with 100 smaller Hot Spots deployed where needed.

With the C1s, there is no need for the end user — a home or small business — having to worry about configuration. Just point it toward the access point and plug it in. In terms of maintenance and network management, you really need to concern yourself with just the four A8Es on your rooftop hub.

Right now this solution is being deployed by China Telecom on a very large scale. It is easy to deploy, cheap to maintain, and as it is ‘hub and spoke’ is able to deliver a much faster more reliable experience to users. You are always one hop from the internet. That means more bandwidth, better video, better VOIP.

Wired Towns is actively seeking the opportunity to deploy a large scale Altai solution in a major city. After deploying in Times Square, Union Square and elsewhere with Altai, we are ready, with our partner Lemcon, to build something much larger that will outperform any public Wi-Fi network in the U.S. The fact is, Altai is just breaking into this market, and right now no one can match their performance.

When I meet with community groups trying to address the digital divide — that which separates those who are online versus those who aren’t, I am often told that the biggest obstacle is affordability. Even if bandwidth was free, how could anyone afford a laptop or a desktop? Now of course there are a number of hard working community groups that will refurbish donated computers, there are initiatives to put a laptops in student’s hands.

But then comes a second problem: Even if you manage to put computers in people’s hands, they still will need training in how to use them. Computer interfaces are complex. They are not intuitive. Navigating a web site can often be a confusing experience to a ‘newbie.’ If these ‘newbies’ have basic literacy problems, the problems are compounded.

The internet is becoming wireless, pervasive, localized. This will have profound economic, social, and political effects. Just as the internet made netroots possible, so will the emergence of community intranets, the internet localized, truly change communities, local economies and grassroots politics.

The future belongs to the local and to the people, and there is precious little the media, corporations, and government can do. Grassroots, bottom up will outdo the top down. It is inevitable.

Thanks to Google Alerts, this came across the transom this morning:

Miami Beach spending $5 million for spotty Wi-Fi

Alas, this is what happens when you make such a broad promise using a technology that will not penetrate walls, foliage, and is prone to interference. Offering a blanket guarantee of 90% outdoor and 70% indoor coverage, even at a price tag of $5 million, was either overselling on IBM’s part, on the politicians’ parts, or both.

For those interested in the future of municipal WiFi and how we should best deliver networks and services to the public, I strongly recommend a piece by Larry Karisny on Muniwireless.

In short, he argues that networks should be built with dual public private purposes in mind, since with the rise of smart devices, municipal wireless networks can become dumb pipes for both. Why build two sets of dumb pipes when one will do for all? A meter reading device, or a traffic light monitoring system can get its backhaul from the network while people using the same network can connect in public spaces.

The year 2009 started with municipal wireless left for dead by mainstream media, and it ended with billions in stimulus grant monies supporting the expansion of broadband throughout the world. From rural broadband expansion to making utilities smart, there is a brighter future for municipal wireless broadband networks and the applications support them. We have learned from failed municipal wireless models and can now move forward. There is a new direction: combined public-private wireless networks that offer sustainable financial models and create jobs, reduce energy use and health care costs, promote affordable education and improve national security. There are three reasons why these new models will be successful.

I offer some comments in dialog with Karisny myself, noting how the overall need for Wi-Fi for carriers, the public and the public sector alike should make 2010 a very interesting year in public WiFi.

In an hour long program featuring the likes of Cisco, Shutterfly, and Skype, Wired Towns had the opportunity to pitch the virtues — and the necessity — of public Wi-Fi.

The clip may be found here. The link: http://www.foxbusiness.com/search-results/m/27724529/free-wifi-coming-to-a-town-near-you.htm#q=wired+towns

I had fun with it. We hope to be back once we get started with our first major urban Wi-Fi Hot Zone.

Andrew Garcia of eWeek has written an interesting piece on the growing need for carriers to off load data trafffic onto Wi-Fi networks. It’s entitled Wi-Fi Could Be Used to Shore Up Wireelss Networks Sagging From Smartphone Use.

Noting for one the predicament that AT+T finds itself in,especially in San Francisco and New York, where iPhones are overloading the network, he posits the creation of “muni-lite” networks, large Wi-Fi Hot Zones were a carrier’s customers could go to connect via Wi-Fi for their data needs.

Wired Towns has started to build such networks, in effect, in Times Square, in Rockefeller Plaza and Union Square. Our networks, though, are not built on behalf of a specific carrier, but are open to all. Any Smartphone user that needs to connect can.

Over the coming year, we will be expanding the networks we have already built, and will be building new and larger ones to meet the data demands of Smartphone users. Since mobile data use is projected to grow at 129% CAGR through 2015, the market absolutely needs companies that can deliver large scale turnkey Wi-Fi Hot Zone solutions.

Larry Magid asks Will Free Wi-Fi Become the Norm?

In a word: Absolutely. As I noted on their site, My company provides free Wi-Fi in NYC three prime locations. We built the free Wi-Fi network in Times Square The Times Square Alliance (a Business Improvement District) and for Yahoo! We also built networks in Rockefeller Plaza and Concourse and in Union Square for The Syfy Channel, and for the Union Square Partnership, the local business improvement district.

Increasingly, free Wi-Fi is being offered to promote brands. Increasingly, businesses and business improvement districts are offering free Wi-Fi as a means of drawing people into stores, people with the latest Wi-Fi gadgets.

As Wi-Fi devices continue to flood the market, new revenue streams that support a free model will appear — couponing, advertising, location-based services.

CBS Mobile attempted two years ago to light up all of Manhattan between 59th and 42nd from 6th to 8th Avenues with the revenue coming from hyperlocal advertising. They weren’t wrong, they were early.

One should not unfortunately look for price relief from the carriers for cellular broadband. The fact is that data traffic from mobile devices is now choking their networks. AT+T has sold a boatload of iPhones. As a result, their network is suffering terribly. They and others — Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. are trying to offload as much traffic as they can from their cellular to their Wi-Fi networks. Will they offer theae Wi-Fi networks for free? If price motivates customers to migrate off the cell network for their data traffic, they will do so.

Wi-Fi will not help you upload an article while driving from the airport. That will still be cellular. But as the networks continue to spread and improve, Wi-Fi will become a ubiquitous amenity, especially for those who can afford a $300 device (iTouch, Nexus One) but not $760 a year in data charges.

Google, as relentless as The Borg,

made news once more this week with its courtship of Yelp, offering $500 million for its local search and review platform, and for its sales force of 200 people.

Yelp is now balking. They and their VC investors are thinking they are selling too soon or too cheaply. The sheer size of the local advertising / local search market has to give them pause — tens of billions of dollars are at stake, as local newspapers and local radio, and local TV whither before the digitization of everything.

McDonald’s is offering free Wi-Fi. What a country!

So what other chains will step up next? Radio Shack? Dunkin Donuts?

The market is saying that free Wi-Fi is good for business. Wired Towns would agree, but adds that it can also be good for the community.

I’ve confirmed as a speaker for The Mobile Business Solutions Forum (MOBS) June 21-23rd on The West Coast, location TBD.. Not only is this a perfect family getaway for right when school ends, but also this conference, focused on the mobile professional, is coming at a very opportune time.

Apple (iPhone), RIM (Blackberry), and now Google (The Nexus One) are all flooding the market with devices to help us stay productive everywhere. The lawyer who had to wheel around suitcases of files now just slips a netbook in his shoulder bag. With the devices have come the apps, and more every day. With both have come more and better networks.

Looking ahead, the world of pervasive computing we are entering into will have profound effects on how we interact socially and transact economically. The MOBS conference will be a great opportunity to speak with people so that we can begin to forecast what lies just ahead for us. I am very much looking forward to it.

The big news today from the tubes is that The City of Philadelphia has purchased what was Wireless Philadelphia from the Network Acquisition Group, the company that bought Earthlink’s assets back in June, 2008. NAC sells it for the same price it bought it for, $2 million.

But the big question is, “what is ‘it’? What were the assets? if the assets included the legacy network equipment from Tropos vintage 2004-2006, this is not an asset, but a liability. It was perhaps the most promising platform at the time, but at this point this is all obsolete technology. If it included telephone poles, rooftops, backhaul, then it becomes worth it.

Always nice to make a Ten Best List.

Venerable Bryant Park led the way in terms of free public Wi-Fi at #1. The NYC library system comes in second. They have done a terrific job providing free Wi-Fi as an amenity at 36 of their branches.

Union Square comes in at #4. We are very proud of this, but really we feel we are only getting started. There is so much that can be done with the infrastructure we already have there — 10 Mbps duplex for backhaul, and enough infrastructure to support 200 simultaneous users.

With the iPhones and now the Google phones hitting the market, and with more access points to come, we expect traffic to at least double this year.

Times Square, which Wired Towns built for The Times Square Alliance, and which is sponsored by Yahoo!, comes in at #10. It too will just get better, as more and more people come to know of it, and use it, and as we expand it.

Here’s a nice review of a passing stranger / enterprise Wi-Fi expert, who happened to be in TImes Square last night:

Times Square Wi-Fi. One moment I get a tweet that a Craig Plunkett, who I never met, is following me on Twitter. The next, he’s making a pilgrimage to Times Square to test the Wi-Fi. So far, so good! The T+C page was not ours, btw. I have forwarded Craig’s tweet to the appropriate party.

Not mentioned in the Top Ten Rockefeller Plaza and Concourse. We have Wi-Fi at The Tree and around the rink, and in the Dining Concourse of 30 Rock itself, in all three seating areas. It just needs PR now. Maybe NBC / Syfy, who paid to have this built, can come up with a novel means of creating public awareness about the Wi-Fi. Even those little cardboard stands they put on restaurant tables would help in the seating areas. It absolutely should be in the Top Ten.

You can go outside now with a Wi-Fi enabled camera/video cam and upload pics and movies straight to the Internet while filming the tree/skaters. I’d love to take a Cisco Flip Video cam there, for instance, and have that video go right to a Facebook page. Our networks could handle at least several simultaneously.

So two of the Top Ten for 2009, and we only put them up this year! For 2010, we will continue to build and improve, with Lemcon our global service partner and Altai our infrastructure vendor, providing the best in public Wi-Fi services and experiences.

In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman coins a useful new term: The Great Inflection. It describes what happens when devices and web services become increasingly cheap and available:

In case you haven’t noticed, the U.S. economy today is actually being hit by two tsunamis at once: The Great Recession and the Great Inflection. The Great Inflection is the mass diffusion of low-cost, high-powered innovation technologies — from hand-held computers to Web sites that offer any imaginable service — plus cheap connectivity. They are transforming how business is done. The Great Recession you know.

Even as we slog through the worst economic conditions in 70 years, information technology marches on. Every 18 months, processing speed, storage, and memory doubles, bandwidth increases by 50%, prices drop. Faster, better, cheaper. Every year, so many millions more are on the web. Now with the dawning of pervasive computing — the internet everywhere — we are not only changing how we do business, as Friedman would have it, but also how we interact with each other.

The rumors are swirling now. Is Google about to release the Google Phone? Here’s the buzz from Mashable..

You can assume at this point three things — it will have Wi-Fi and a VOIP client — Skype, etc and it will integrate Google Voice.

So what will this mean for my business and favorite cause, public Wi-Fi? Simply this — for Wired Towns, VOIP over Wi-Fi is how to get people to use the network. If people with Google Phones use our networks opportunistically to make calls, we are fine with that as long as we are in a position to offer them value added applications and services.

The same pertains to iPhones, and other smart phones from RIM, Samsung, Dell, etc — make VOIP calls via the Wi-Fi for free, but also see what else our community networks and portals have to offer — hyper local community-based and community generated content and experiences.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, of course, are going highly local themselves, but the question at the end of the day is ‘who owns the local?’ Wired Towns believes that it’s the community, and not these megaportals. Our mission is to support them, give them the tools to build their own wireless community intranets and generate their own content and advertisements.

Today in The Wall Street Journal, in an Article entitled AT+T Faces a Data Dilemma, we learn of a plan from AT+T to incent its customers to cut back on their data usage.

Well we can all imagine how well that suggestion went over in the comments. Who on earth wants to use their devices LESS? That is not going to happen.

AT+T is selling iPhones hand over fist, making enormous profits, but the data demands from all these mobile devices are killing their networks — shrinking coverage, dropped calls. In NYC and and SF, the service is getting pretty horrible.

There is no way on earth AT+T will ever be able to build out their 3G/4G networks fast enough to keep up with demand.

Here’s a simple graph of the problem:

With where Wi-Fi networking is now, and with 802.11n radios in the latest iPhone, they would do well to consider setting up Wi-Fi Hot Zones in their major markets so as to cheaply and quickly alleviate this congestion problem.

Now AT+T may lose some voice revenues to VOIP over Wi-Fi (iPhones can have Skype clients aboard of course), but they stand to lose a lot more in terms of customer churn if they just let the inevitable happen.

Reading this article on TMCnet really got the day off to the right start for me.

For me, VOIP has always been the killer app for municipal Wi-Fi. All that was lacking were 1. devices and 2. ‘good enough’ networks. Now with 144 million VOIP capable Wi-Fi phones shipping this year, and over 300 million by 2011, we have one part of the equation solved. With 802.11n now an official standard, and with that radio now being build into everyone’s Wi-Fi networking gear, the other part is also solved.

Result? People will find a very compelling reason to use and to build municipal Wi-Fi networks. Think Skype on an iTouch, or on a netbook. Instead of paying $30/month on a calling plan, you are basically able to pay for your nifty little computer or handheld in six months, and the rest they say is gravy.

One could well object that by taking all the profit out of voice, you don’t aren’t making any money on that either. But what if, unlike the carriers, you are not in the business of selling voice subscriptions but instead selling all the various applications and services that such a network could support? Give away the voice, and get the user base.

This is Wired Town’s strategy. With Altai Technologies shipping high capacity Wi-Fi networking gear to carriers around the world, and with Lemcon, a global integrator of wireless networks installing and maintaining them, Wired Towns has a platform to provide high capacity VOIP over Wi-Fi networks anywhere.

Free voice via VOIP over Wi-Fi (well, Skype and similar services make the money) makes the network itself very valuable to the user community, and creates a potential customer base for premium services on the platform.

One big fat Wi-Fi Hot Zone in the middle of a major city is where I’d like to start with this.

Until recently, anyone looking at building a public Wi-Fi network has been first looking at mesh, whether we are speaking of grassroots efforts on one hand or the efforts of large telcos on the other. (Note 1)

Here is a nice diagram of an outdoor mesh network:

Like the internet itself, mesh is self-healing — lose a node and the network reorganizes, choosing a new ‘best path’ to the internet. (2) Mesh has always appealed to Wi-Fi activists because it is grassroots, decentralized, and cost effective. Just add nodes. With a Meraki, an Open Mesh, or a FON router, everyone can put up a node, everyone can share, and so the network grows. And grown they have — explosively.

Whether you are interested in bringing Wi-Fi to Main Street, or to the local hotel or resort, or to an apartment complex, or to a container port or airport for logistics, or to police departments for surveillance or mobile video, or to ferry boats for commuters, Altai has a solution for you.

The presentation on the link below is an overview of how Altai’s Wi-Fi networking solutions have been deployed all over the world.

Wired Town’s work in Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza is featured within these pages, but that is alongside deployments in Prague, Colombia, Japan, China, among other places. Altai is in over 40 countries. Lemcon Networks, a global distributor and integrator of Altai and Wired Towns’ wireless network integration partner, has already deployed Altai on three continents. Our solutions are truly global.

Altai Deployment Scenarios Overview For Wired Towns.pdf

250 Meters:

800 Meters;

Altai’s Wi-Fi solution just got better on two fronts. First, they have come out with the A8-Ei, which ingeniously puts the radio and all the cabling inside the antenna panel ‘i’ stands for internal. The ‘E’ is for ‘extended.’ The antenna is sectorized, that is it only broadcasts at a 110 degree angle. It can reach much further than a standard A8 (70% further), but only within this window.

Altai in the attached press release claims a range of up to 2600 feet or half a mile! As with anything RF, results may vary, but this much I know from experience in Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza, Union Square and otherwise — nothing can touch Altai on range or performance. Wired Towns, Lemcon a global distributor and integrator of Altai equipment, and Wired Towns’ integration partner, and of course Altai itself is are anxious to deploy this along the boulevards of our major cities and the main streets of our towns.

Now the other side of the equation is this — the C1. The C1 can take the Wi-Fi signal from an A8, A8E, A8Ei (or A2 or A3 for that matter), amplify it and rebroadcast it for homes and small businesses at a distance of up to 2.6 miles! rural.

Again, results will vary, but we have already ordered some for testing at our urban locations — Rockefeller Plaza, Union Square, and Times Square. What a great way to extend the footprint of a public Wi-Fi Hot Spot. For $168, a small business or residence can tap into the ambient Wi-Fi from outside and even make a hard wire (Ethernet) connection with the C1 and run a small office set up off it in addition of course to going wireless.

With the A8 and the C1 in combination, a WISP can create a community Hot Zone then deliver metered (and fee based) internet service to whoever installs a C1, with pricing determined by their bandwidth requirements. They are doing it now all over China.

Wired Towns intends to do this here. In fact, something along these lines must be done here because the 3G mobile data networks cannot and will not be able to support the data traffic in their licensed spectrum (3G). They must offload as much of that traffic as possible onto Wi-Fi. That’s the reality. That being the case, it will have to be excellent Wi-Fi. We will be putting Altai to the test on this combo very soon in NYC.

You may read the release on the next page:

So Rupert Murdoch has a diabolical plan whereby his content gets paid for.on the web. He is in discussions with Microsoft about News Corporation blocking all its content from Google’s search bots and offering it up to Microsoft for Bing!, their new search product.

It’s truly a devil’s bargain — Microsoft is losing badly in the search competition with Google, and this would change the game. But as soon as one media conglomerate finds it can charge a portal company for content, won’t the others jump in? What will the NY Times, AOL, Yahoo, ABC, NBC, CBS, Viacom, Reuters, AP, Interactive Corp, and yes Google do in response to this?

We can well imagine the repercussions — a world of information only a click away, or content siloed away and accessible only via Google, or AOL, or Microsoft, or Yahoo, or Ask, etc.

Free providers of content would be pressed to pay up too.

So cyberspace all corralled up and fenced in. And the News Corps dream is complete — a separate media reality to further engulf its followers.

So much for Net Neutrality. You’ll get only the information your search service paid to get. I suppose some will be seduced to think this will save print media and traditional journalism. And Microsoft must be tempted to change the rules of engagement with their arch rival, where otherwise, they are looking at a long slow decline.

It’s a good thing that there’s a counter move that communities have at their disposal that can outdo that strategy. That’s for another time.

Wired Towns Brings the A3, Altai Technologies’ World Leading Gigabit Multi Radio 802.11n Super WiFi Solution, to New York City’s Rockefeller Center

Hong Kong, Nov 18, 2009 - Altai Technologies Limited, a leading outdoor Super WiFi solution provider and the Wired Towns, a company dedicated to delivering turnkey Wi-Fi solutions to business improvement districts (BIDs), communities and public spaces announce today a further expansion of the Syfy Wyfy network in Rockefeller Center and the Concourse at 30 Rock. The initial network, built for NBC’s the Syfy Channel as part of their rebranding, and in conjunction with their Imagine Greater campaign, which encourages people to conceive of and build better tomorrows, launched July 7th of this year.

The upgrade, performed in Rockefeller Center to support of events during the holiday season such as the tree lighting and the opening of the ice skating rink, substantially increased the range and performance of the network in this iconic space. Both the initial network and the upgrade were performed by Lemcon, Wired Towns’ service partner and an Altai distributor and integrator. By deploying Altai’s A3 Gigabit multi radio 802.11n Super WiFi Solution, the visitors can connect to the Rockerfeller’s Syfy-Wyfy portal (view here), which offers local information on where to shop and dine, and points of interest, as well as surfing the internet for free.

Here is the current coverage on the plaza (between 49th and 50th Streets between 5th and 6th Avenues:

“We believe this network represents a significant advance in public Wi-Fi both in terms of capacity and web design,” said Marshall Brown, CEO of Wired Towns. “With Altai A3 Smart WiFi access points, and with each access point designed for up to 768 simultaneous users and a total wireless throughput of a gigabit, we have built a robust high performance network. With our local WiFi portal solution, we are able to present local information as well as our client’s multimedia content to to Rockefeller Center employees, tourists, and passersby at this iconic location.”

The A3 access points are discretely hidden from view in this landmark building, provide Wi-Fi coverage for the three dining areas which together seat more than a thousand a day, part of the 300,000 that pass through Rockefeller Center daily.

Chi-hung Lin, President & CEO of Altai Technologies said, “We are glad that Altai’s Super WiFi solution is employed in this national historic landmark to serve the New Yorkers through Wired Towns. The advanced design of the A3 Smart WiFi offers unprecedented performance, rapid deployment and scalability to network operator, it enhances a wide range of multimedia applications and facilitates business activities.”

Rockefeller Center, located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, is a world-renowned business hub and tourist attraction, and that is home to NBC, Bank of America, publisher Simon and Schuster, and Radio City Music Hall most prominently.

#

About Wired Towns LLC

Wired Towns LLC offers turnkey community Wi-Fi services, offering a complete solution, from the design, installation, monitoring, maintenance of a Wi-Fi network, to the creation, maintenance and hosting of local community portals that showcase local community and content. Wired Town’s mission is to support local communities through location-based content, applications and services both wirelessly and on the web, and to create novel multimedia and interactive experiences via leading edge Wi-Fi networks.

For more information: www.wiredtowns.com

About Altai Technologies

Altai Technologies is a high technology company focused on the design, development and marketing of innovative outdoor wireless broadband solutions. Its flagship product, the A8 Super WiFi base station, is being deployed throughout the world in outdoor environments. Altai’s award-winning base station dramatically improves the Wi-Fi signal coverage while minimizing interference from other signals broadcasting within the 2.4GHz unlicensed frequency spectrum.

The A8 Super WiFi base station has been proven in both urban and remote application in various regions and countries, including cities in the US, China, Malaysia, Cambodia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asian-Pacific countries.

For more information, please visit www.altaitechnologies.com

For media enquiries, please contact

Altai Technologies Limited Annie Loi Tel : +852 3758 6000 Email : annieloi@altaitechnologies.com

Recently, I was asked to add editorial comment to a policy briefing on the economic benefits of using unlicensed spectrum that was being prepared for the White House for Microsoft. The final paper can be found here.

It was put together by Ingenious Consulting U.K. The core argument is that opening up more spectrum would be a great boon to the economy, adding many billions a year to the GDP, because it will foster innovation. Open platforms, low barriers to entry, a far greater diversity of approaches and models will create value across a number of verticals — health care, telecom (of course), education, entertainment, small business services, public safety.

Ingenious did some great research here. I recommend this paper for anyone interested in U.S. Teleom Policy.

Ingenious found me while Googling for pervasive wireless. They found this instead: The (Inevitable) Future of Muniwireless. Their briefing had hundreds upon hundreds of hours of research behind it, while my contribution was a short essay. When going from theory to practice, facts matter, and that’s where we happen to be when it comes to where Wi-Fi and more broadly, public wireless is today. Facts —— and inevitable trends — are pointing us towards the same outcome.

In the wake of the announcement that Google was providing Wi-Fi for free in 47 airports and Yahoo in Times Square, Malik Om and Stacy Higginbotham at GigaOm just posted Why Free Wi-Fi Marketing Is Smart .

My reply there was:

Well since it was Wired Towns http://www.wiredtowns.com that built the network that Yahoo is running in Times Square, and that also built two networks for NBC’s Syfy Channel, one in Rockefeller Plaza and Concourse and the other in Union Square (www.syfy-wyfy.com) via a sponsorship, I’d agree whole- heartedly. There’s a lot you can do with free public Wi-Fi and marketing, especially here in NYC, the media capital of the world. As Madison Avenue goes wireless and digital, as content providers seek new promotional channels and distribution models, with the flood of smartphones hitting the market, WiFi marketing has become very popular all of a sudden. Wired Towns has been the only one to successfully deploy in these challenging urban locations. We look forward to building out large networks in other parts of New York and in other cities and countries soon, and it will be in part sponsor driven.

I think its no secret that what the major appeal of sponsored WiFi is — or should be about — local search. Wi-Fi can be a local intranet, a portal to the place you are in. Microsoft is explicitly using its promotion as a means of promoting Bing, getting consumers used to it, changing habits. When a new platform comes along, that’s the time to create new behaviors, and with the backing of the major telecoms and the major portal companies, with an iPhone in every other pocket and Android entering the market, and RIM embracing Wi-Fi for telephony with the Curve, we can’t build Wi-Fi networks fast enough now.

Just on the heels Yahoo’s launch of free Wi-Fi in Times Square thanks to Wired Towns comes news that Google is offering Wi-Fi in 47 airports starting today November 10th through January 15th. And its for a good cause: Google, still not being evil.

They are raising money for three nonprofits, Engineers without Borders, One Economy Corporation and Climate Savers Computing Initiative — up to $250K per airport. Wired Towns has gotten to know the One Economy people recently, and we are delighted that they are receiving such largesse — well deserved given how long they have been fighting the good fight to bridge the Digital Divide.

Times Square, and now 47 airports all in one morning. The wireless internet is our country’s future. What media / technology company is next? If they are looking for a way to showcase their brand and their products, sponsoring public Wi-Fi Hot Zones is the way to go.

Wired Towns can create turnkey high performance public Wi-Fi solutions for them literally anywhere in the U.S. and in a number of countries. We have now a network in Times Square running for our client The Times Square Alliance and for their sponsor Yahoo. We have built two more networks for NBC / The Syfy Channel in Rockefeller Center and Union Square and are now planning larger deployments in other cities in the U.S. and abroad. For those planning global Wi-Fi networks for marketing and distribution, or for telecoms who wish to create high performance Wi-Fi networks on their footprint, we can help.

It took many months, mostly because it is never easy to get rooftop space in New York, but as of this morning we are live in Times Square with free Wi-Fi for our client, The Times Square Alliance, and for their sponsor Yahoo!

Wired Towns, with its integration partner, Lemcon, a global integrator of wireless networks, built and now maintains the network. We used networking equipment from Altai Technologies. We are confident in saying that no other gear could have delivered the performance that Altai did in this very challenging urban space.

We applaud Yahoo! for bringing this exciting public amenity to the center of NYC, and The Times Square Alliance and their determination to make free public Wi-Fi happen.

Wired Towns believes that corporate sponsorship of public Wi-Fi will be a key means through which public Wi-Fi can spread in NYC. Wired Towns previously built two networks, one in Rockefeller Plaza, and the other in Union Square for its client The Syfy Channel. There is no reason other major media and technology companies couldn’t bring more Wi-Fi to our city.

New York is the Media Capital of the World. It needs to become The Wireless Digital Media Capital as well.

If the explosive growth of the internet and Wi-Fi have taught us anything, it’s that open systems spur innovation. The internet has flourished because at core it belongs to no one, to no corporate entity. It has allowed entrepreneurs to innovate freely, their only challenge having been to create something new that people wanted.