Meraki, the Google and Sequoia-backed startup that focuses on citywide Wi-Fi networks, hasn’t let the demise of municipal Wi-Fi halt its efforts to make money or make the wireless network technology available in more places. It has scaled back considerably on its visions of open source, low-cost Wi-Fi for municipalities, instead focusing on Wi-Fi for apartment buildings, city squares and environments where someone is willing to pay to provide the service. Instead of connecting the world, Meraki wants to connect with paying customers. And that’s a good thing.

Today the company announced a Wi-Fi access point that plugs into a wall, and on Dec. 4 will release a lighter solar-powered access point to go places where power doesn’t. In a briefing about the products, it’s clear that Meraki still holds onto its altruistic views, with CEO Sanjit Biswas trumpeting the growth of Wi-Fi networks in Africa and small Chilean fishing villages. However, he’s quick to point out that hotels and apartment buildings can use the new Meraki products to rapidly install Wi-Fi networks that will cover a complex all the way from the pool to inside bedrooms.

In the last year, the startup has changed its business model several times, from trumpeting cheap hardware and charging a fee to access a dashboard, to tripling the price of its hardware and pushing ads. Such shifting hasn’t sat well with some citywide Wi-Fi network proponents, but the bottom line for many cities and customers is that Meraki’s Wi-Fi networks are still cheaper than those from vendors such as Cisco or Juniper. As Wi-Fi becomes more important, Meraki’s capitalizing on its cheaper gear with new packages that offer to unwire a city street for $10,000, or today’s launch of a residential package designed for apartments and hotels that costs less than $5,000.

Wi-Fi is of growing interest for both consumers and ISPs. Earlier this year, Quentanna, a Wi-Fi chipmaker hoping to build a plug-in home access point to boost wireless signals, launched with a few ISP customers on board. A few weeks ago AT&T purchased hot-spot provider, Wayport for $275 million. If Meraki can figure out a way to spread Wi-Fi and make money, it could be in a good position as ubiquitous access to the Internet becomes more important for gadget-toting consumers. Wi-Fi is one of the most common gateways to the web, and even in a down economy Meraki thinks it can make money on the tools to build those gateways rather than by managing them. Meraki has realized that instead of saving the world, it needed to save its business.

Quantance, a San Mateo, Calif.-based chip firm, has raised a $12 million second round of funding to build a component part that will improve cell phone data reception by boosting the signal the phone sends to the base station. The funding, led by the TD Fund, with DoCoMO Capital, Granite Ventures and InterWest Partners also participating, supports Quantance’s efforts to manufacture and market its analog chip. The involvement of DOCOMO Capital, the venture arm of the Japanese cell phone giant, could help boost Quantance’s acceptance in the handset market if NTT DOCOMO pushes the chip for its own handsets.

Nothing like a deep recession to get a company’s management to focus. Carphone Warehouse, a major retail chain in Europe, is going to de-couple its broadband (telecom) business from its retail operations, according to various press reports. In the UK, spin-offs are called “de-mergers.” Funny how a downturn prompts companies to change their tune from “free broadband forever” to “get me outta here.” Some analysts estimate that Carphone’s Talk Talk telecom business is worth around $2 billion. It is the second largest broadband provider in Britain. Carphone’s decision, however, shows that the entire mobile phone ecosystem is very prone to the economic downturn.

UPDATED: The recession won’t cut too deeply into wireless data spending in the U.S. for now, according to data sent over last night by Chetan Sharma of Chetan Sharma Consulting. In his third-quarter wireless data report, Sharma concludes that the rise in the number of consumer smartphones over the last few quarters means that data spending by consumers will likely offset cuts in revenue caused by the loss of jobs and employer-subsidized data subscriptions.

Data is continuing to offset the loss in voice ARPU (average revenue per user), and is still rising as a percentage of wireless revenue, to stand at more than 23 percent for U.S. carriers as of the end of the third quarter. A year ago, the percentage contribution stood at 17.7 percent. Sharma estimates that in the U.S., that number is likely to exceed the 25-percent mark in the final quarter of 2008. Verizon Sprint leads the pack, with data ARPU of $13.58 $13.50. T-Mobile, which is only now rolling out its 3G network, has a scant $9 in data ARPU from customers.

However, economic uncertainly and rising data penetration (more than 35 percent of the U.S. now has a data plan), means that there may be some pressure on pricing. Sharma also notes that after the holidays, if times don’t improve, the industry might see declines in data toward the end of the second quarter of 2009.

Normally I don’t pay much attention to product announcements, but a news release from Proxim Wireless caught my eye. They are announcing a new device that uses dual 802.11n radios to wirelessly transmit data at speeds in excess of 300 Mbps. A single radio version can hit speeds of 170 Mbps. These speeds would make them almost seven times faster than current wireless networks. Many believe that we are headed to Gigabit Wireless Networks soon. The 802.11n standard is still in “draft” and is expected to be finalized by November 2009.

Proxim claims that using a distributed wireless architecture that eliminates the need for a centralized wireless controller makes it easy for them to overcome the bottlenecks associated with the centralized controller architecture that is used by most Wi-Fi gear makers. The company is using a Freescale processor and latest Atheros 802.11n chipset.

iPhone apps might some day be the gold mine for advertising.  In the meanwhile, we are seeing the emergence of a new trend: iPhone apps as ads. Hollywood studios are the first ones to react and using free applications to promote its movies. We are totally loving the new app for the latest Bond flick, Quantum of Solace. More than just a micro-site, the Bond application lets you watch the movie trailers and read up about the movie. It also pushes you out to the iTunes music store if you want to you want to purchase Jack White’s throbbing theme song from the film. Of course others have more immersive apps. 

The Dark Knight, for example has come up with a way to add some Joker-style graffiti to photos of your friends. Use the touch screen to drag and rotate elements and then save and send them as you like. Bolt, Disney’s forthcoming animated canine adventure has released an app which is essentially a free stripped down Super Monkey game for a very subtle hand.

All three apps, however, lack the seemingly most obvious feature - the ability to actually purchase tickets for the movie. That much imagination would be too much to ask from Hollywood, but we are happy that they are thinking about ways to promote their movies on screens that matter.

As the world moves to fourth generation wireless networks, lawyers for chip firms, handset makers and other technology firms are moving into their bargaining positions on patents related to the technology that enables the WiMAX and LTE networks. When deploying an in-depth technology protocol, such as WiAMX and LTE, many firms will own the intellectual property needed to create a network, from the silicon to the handsets. Those IP owners want to get paid, but the more patent holders charge, the more expensive the end devices and network components can become.

Over at Fierce Broadband Wireless, they have a story noting that in-building wireless firm ADC thinks it has a several key patents related to deploying LTE and WiMAX. ADC says it’s willing to license those patents at a “fair and reasonable rate,” which is basically an invite to bring people to the negotiating table. Is ADC trying to be the next Qualcomm, which has aggravated the industry by controlling key patents and charging high royalty rates?

A group of handset makers has banded together to create a patent framework for LTE, but other key players, notably the silicon vendors are absent. ADC adds another player to that mix. Because ADC doesn’t make hardware such as handsets, it doesn’t have an incentive to trade its patents for the use of other patents needed for an LTE device to work. It also isn’t a member of a standards organization, which WOULD limit the royalties ADC could charge. We’ll see if the industry players attempt to deal with ADC or move straight to litigation. The results could mean pricier LTE handsets or even the halt of LTE- and WiMAX-enabled devices, should litigation go poorly.

Japanese telecom giant NTT DoCoMo said today that it has acquired 26 percent of Tata Teleservices for $2.7 billion, which is actually higher than the valuation of the largest CDMA carrier in India, Reliance Communications. The premium is a sign that the Japanese covet the Indian market and, more importantly, the ethics of the Tata Group. Tata’s wireless and fixed wireless business is sold under the brand Tata Indicom. The new money will allow Tata to expand into offering GSM-based services and compete more effectively against the likes of Bharti Airtel and Reliance. A large number of international players have made a beeline to the Indian market in recent months, with DoCoMo being just the latest.

Over the years we have seen the gradual separation of phone numbers from geographical location. To date, Skype’s SkypeIn service has been the best demonstration of this trend; even though I live and work just outside Toronto, Canada, I have a Palo Alto, Calif., SkypeIn number for historical family reasons, and I recently acquired a San Francisco number for Truphone. The same separation can apply to most VoIP-based voice services.

Over the past couple of years Belgian-based Voxbone has also developed an international numbering service which offers its clients a “local” phone numbers in any of 5,000 cities in 45 countries. OnState has used Voxbone’s “local” numbers as access points to its virtual call center service; its clients’ businesses can offer customer service and support centers with worldwide “local” access. However, it would be even more convenient for businesses selling into multiple countries if they could simply offer one universal number worldwide. Now, they can.

Yesterday, three months after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) made available the +883 “global” country code, Voxbone announced the launch of its country-agnostic iNum service. I first learned of Voxbone at last spring’s eComm 2008 where Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens first mentioned the iNum concept. This announcement starts to realize his vision of enabling low cost conversations with worldwide access by taking advantage of the technology around IP-based communications:

“iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world — a world with a new geography that’s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,” said Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. “We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ‘local’ communication with these people — whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ‘virtually’ local.”

In practice, that means a Voxbone iNum Service Provider Partner will supply a customer, whether an individual or a business, with a number that has an 883 country code. Once the service is fully rolled out to Voxbone’s 5,000 local points of presence worldwide, that iNum number will be accessible for, at most, the cost of a “local” phone call from any PSTN or VoIP service.

“At most,” because fundamental to Voxbone’s services is that they are IP-based and therefore calls amongst iNum Partners’ services are free. Currently Voxbone has 10 iNum Service Provider Partners, including Truphone, Mobivox and Voxeo, who either have made iNum numbers available today or will do so in the next few weeks. (For those callers who don’t use an iNum partner’s service, iNum numbers can be called through 55 “local” access points in 45 countries for the cost of a call to these access points.) Ullens, in a SquawkBox conference call yesterday, said that Voxbone will be negotiating with carriers and service providers worldwide to build out their service to become universally available.

Voxeo has set up a demonstration iNum service example; call +883 510 001 800 028 024, give their virtual operator a U.S. postal code and you will get local weather reports. This call can be made via the iNum Partners’ services today; it will become available via the local access points as they are set up over the next week. Another example: iotum’s Callflower Conference Call service will be using iNum numbers in a few days.

Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor of Skype Journal.

I was playing Texas Hold’em on the iPhone the other day when it struck me: If Apple allowed one-touch financial transactions inside apps — in the case of Texas Hold’em, for example, to buy $1,000 of poker chips for $1 — the consequences could be huge. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace, games, location-based services and pure-play commerce apps could see instant windfalls with the right functionality.

Apple is in the catbird seat to dominate micropayments. Their “batch and bill” implementation in iTunes, which boasts perhaps the smoothest online purchasing UI ever, now serves as a foundation for the App Store, creating a whole new genre of software that I call “impulseware” — cheap enough and easy enough to buy on a whim. I’ve already spent a total of $22.99 on apps for the iPhone — some useful, some not — since the App Store launched in the summer. Just getting people to spend on software is a feat; I, for one, haven’t spent money on software anywhere else.

I would be spending a lot more if Apple extended the API to allow for the ability to transact within apps. It would give real viability to virtual gifts, currencies and goods across the myriad of apps out there by allowing pennies and dollars to change hands in a frictionless way. As both a developer and a consumer, that is exciting.

There is potentially a lot at stake here. As we shift toward the mobile web, we are seeing a repudiation of the browser as the single, über app. Apple has already re-inspired (and perhaps revitalized) the vibrant shareware industry; it now has a chance to legitimize new online business models. Such a move would allow those of us in the tech industry to move away from our uncomfortable dependence on the “media model” that has informed web development for the last 15 years or so. And by offering new options for generating revenue, Apple would get a leg up on Android in the battle for developer mindshare.

The carriers have had ample opportunity to spread their own payment platform, but instead their various handsets and typically unfriendly strategies toward developers have opened the door for Apple. The company, after upstaging the music industry titans, stands poised to extend their revolution of content delivery to that of application delivery — and in the process, to sell even more devices.

They say good things come in small packages. That certainly is true of the new INQ Social Mobile phone from INQ, a subsidiary of Hutchinson Whampoa, a global wireless company that runs 3G networks in eight countries around the world, including the UK and Australia. INQ’s new triband-with-3G phone is diminutive — 110 g (3.9 oz) — but it packs a powerful punch. It is smaller than a bar of Baby Ruth chocolate and is likely to cost about $50 a pop. INQ’s new phone will make a debut on the 3 network in the UK later this week, and it should raise some eyebrows and impress many.

Hutchinson’s 3 network caused a sensation last year when it released a phone that was designed around Skype and Skype’s communication abilities. The phone proved to be a commercial and critical success. Encouraged by its success, Hutchinson decided to spin out its handset operations into a standalone company to sell phones to carriers other than 3.

The result is a new phone — the first of many — that is chasing what is going to be the biggest trend in the mobile industry: application-specific mobile phones. Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ, last month said that while “iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are sensational devices,” the fact remains that carriers need more lower cost devices with great UI. “INQ isn’t meant to compete with those top end devices, but instead is designed to get the core Internet comms services easy to use for the mass market,” Meehan said. I agree, and after using the phone for less than a day on a slower EDGE network, I can only imagine how good a device it will be on faster networks. And its sole purpose is to keep the data usage growing on the mobile networks so that carriers can recoup the money they spent building their 3G networks.

The phone is based on Qualcomm’s 6260 chipset and uses the Brew OS. The device’s whole experience is optimized for a few web applications — Skype (obviously), Facebook, Google, instant messaging and other apps like Last.fm. All the apps show up at the bottom of screen, reminiscent of Apple’s App Dock, which makes it easy to navigate through many apps. (I wonder when Nokia will buy some clues and make navigating through apps easy.)

The apps themselves have been optimized for the tiny screen experience, and worked flawlessly over a T-Mobile 2.5G EDGE connection. The Facebook app, for instance, was easy to use: I could snap pictures with the 3.2 megapixel camera and post them to Facebook with relative ease. I was suitably impressed with the way INQ has integrated Skype, Facebook and IM into the phone’s address book and developed a next generation communication experience. The phone has a decent browser (Netfront 3.4) that can handle Flash, and the screen, while tiny at 2.2 inches, is good enough to use the web applications effectively.

I wish I could have tested the phone on a 3G network and not been limited by the slower EDGE connection.  Being on a slow connection, I couldn’t really use Skype effectively, and I find doing messaging (IM) or replying to emails using a 12-key dialpad impossible. But I am sure there are folks who are not challenged by big thumbs and advancing years.

Now, this device isn’t going to work in the U.S. — which is a shame because I really love this tiny-yet-simple device. It is like the Toyota Scion of the mobile world — well designed, cool, functional and inexpensive.

For the last couple of days I have been playing around with what could arguably be the best Windows Mobile phone in business – Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1. From the packaging to the diminutive USB charger to the sleek finish of the device itself, the whole X1 experience is flawless. It is a well-designed smartphone that is very well-engineered. It is no different than Sony VAIO laptops or Bravia TVs, and as such it’s no surprise that it’s expensive: $799. The device is going to be available in the U.S. starting Nov. 28 on Sony’s web site, Sony Style.

It comes with a very comfortable slider keyboard, great connectivity options (WiFi, 3G, Quad-band GSM etc.) and is a multimedia powerhouse. The phone comes with a 3-inch WVGA display with resolution of up to 800 X 480 pixels screen, which means it can play back videos in almost DVD quality and makes it easy to play 3D mobile games. I love the photos taken by the 3.2 megapixel camera and the music playback is solid and clear. X1 has a pretty decent battery life — and yes, it beats the pants off the iPhone 3G battery. It got about 8 hours on AT&T’s 3G network — ahead of my iPhone — but lagged the Android G1. However, it had better GSM standby and talk times. But again, battery usage differs from person to person. One thing I hate about the device is that it lacks built-in memory, but the good news is that it can take up to 32 GB in a memory card.

What will surprise you the most is that this phone is powered by Windows Mobile 6.1. Despite the torturous Windows Mobile interface, I found myself liking this device, which shows that with some creativity and lots of imagination, even Windows Mobile can stand up to assaults from Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s ( s rimm) Blackberry and Google’s Android. Of course Windows Mobile means that the phone syncs with Microsoft Exchange over the air. It can read documents, spreadsheets and presentations natively.

I was surprised by how nimble the phone feels — I have yet to use another Windows Mobile phone that comes close to X1. The device gives you many ways to interact with the contact touch, full QWERTY keyboard, 4-way key and optical joystick navigation and panels. It is the panels which are awesome and function almost like how the applications are accessed on the iPhone.

Bottomline: If your company insists that you need a Windows Mobile phone, then Xperia X1 is an obvious (and perhaps the only) choice.

Yesterday, Ion Media, a broadcaster behind an effort to create a new way to deliver over-the-air broadcast television to mobile phones, announced a successful test of a new mobile digital television standard. Because when you have a laughably small number of mobile television viewers, you may as well try a different standard in hopes that it will succeed where others have failed. The standard, created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, has succeeded in trials at easily delivering broadcast television to mobile phones, using existing spectrum. However, the content won’t be linked back to the Internet — this version of mobile TV turns your phone or other portable devices into a mini-TV.

The ATSC standard will compete with Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology that AT&T and Verizon use to deliver mobile television to subscribers, but unlike MediaFLO, it doesn’t require a separate network to broadcast the shows. A group of broadcast networks, LG Electronics and Samsung are part of a coalition called the Open Mobile Video Coalition working with the ATSC to create a single standard for delivering mobile television to cell phones and other devices by 2009, when the switch to digital television is complete.

The ATSC plans to formally approve its mobile TV standard later this month. Chips and systems will be available before the end of 2009. Initial offerings are likely to appear in the automotive space. I have tons of questions about this service that I’m trying to get answered and will update y’all if any of the parties gets back to me.

The troubles in telecom continue as Nokia Siemens Networks plans to cut an additional 1,300 employees in Finland and Germany as part of an overall restructuring. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the telecommunications equipment maker has cut about 6,000 workers and plans to lay off a total of about 9,000 before the restructuring is complete. NSN is a joint venture between Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG. Laid-off NSN employees won’t be alone, as workers throughout the communications value chain watch their jobs disappear — from those working at Freescale and ST-NXP Wireless to those at Nokia and Motorola. The industry and its employees have weathered downturns before, but it’s hard to watch it happen all over again.

As consumers use more data on their mobile phones, carriers want to know more about what consumers are doing with that data access. While the revenue from wireless data plans is rising to about a fifth or a fourth of carrier’s wireless sales overall, a survey released today, and conducted on behalf of Nokia Siemens Networks, indicates that carriers have bigger plans for data. Taking a page from web firms such as Google or Facebook, they want to know — in detail — how their subscribers are using wireless broadband, in order to make more money.

The survey, developed by Loudhouse Research, a UK-based company, included interviews with 100 senior executives at mobile operators and mobile Internet portals. More than half of the respondents — 53 percent — said existing customer data infrastructure doesn’t enable analysis of customer behavior, and 46 percent complained that data is not being analyzed quickly enough.

If carriers are going to move beyond their fear of becoming dumb pipes, they’re going to have to have a better idea of what their subscribers do with their data plans. As more people surf the Internet from a carrier’s wireless network, the carrier’s desire for information may run up against consumers’ desire for privacy — a debate highlighted this summer when ISPs tried to serve ads based upon users’ surfing habits. Nokia Siemens Networks research forecasts that the amount of data transmitted over mobile networks will increase 800 percent, to 13.5 million terabytes, over the next four years.

This makes the idea of network managment tools for wireless networks more relevant, which is good for companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Procera Networks or Continuous Computing, which are pushing equipment or software that see deep into wireless network traffic. As carriers follow Google, which keeps and mines all sorts of data, consumers need to be on their guard.

Apple’s 3G iPhone was the best-selling handset in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2008, according to data compiled by The NPD Group. Apple had previously reported that it sold about 6.89 million iPhones (3G) in the quarter. The research group identifies Apple’s new device “as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S.”

It beat out Motorola’s RZR V3 (all models), RIM’s Blackberry Curve, the LG Rumor and the LG enV2, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research group said. RAZR was ranked as the top seller for past 12 quarters. That is bad news for Motorola, which is already on the mat after being pummeled with losses and declining market share. Funnily enough, phones with a QWERTY keyboard were in high demand — 30 percent of the handsets sold in this quarter had keyboards, versus just 11 percent the year prior. According to NPD Group, the domestic handset purchases by adult consumers declined 15 percent year over year in third quarter to 32 million units. Consumer handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion.