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Ericsson, Nokia Siemens lay the groundwork for HetNet with new Wi-Fi technology

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:29:28 +0000

Wireless equipment makers Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks took important first steps toward the future heterogeneous networks this week at CTIA Wireless. Both vendors announced new traffic steering technologies that make Wi-Fi and cellular data networks play nice with one another.

Today Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networks sit side by side, but they hardly work together. When you’re in the presence of an authorized hotspot your device will log in, leaving the cellular connection behind. As you wander away from the access point, your Wi-Fi connection gets weaker to the point of uselessness until your device finally disconnects and forces its way back onto the cellular grid. It’s hardly an ideal or seamless experience.

These new traffic steering technologies, however, make what were once two distinct networks act as one, selecting the optimal connection at any given moment. So if you suddenly wander into a congested hotspot, the network knows to keep you connected to your 3G cell, instead of forcing you onto a useless Wi-Fi link. As the congestion levels change on those two networks, the user’s device is shifted between them in real time.

This kind of traffic steering will be a key component of heterogeneous networks, or HetNets, which will make use of different radio technologies to create multi-layered and tremendously high-capacity mobile networks. But according to Petri Hautakangas, Nokia Siemens North American head of technology, it’s just a first step. Networks and devices will eventually be able to balance traffic between networks, as well as ship data simultaneously across multiple radio connections, he said.

For Ericsson, the news also represents the full integration of BelAir Networks’ Wi-Fi hotspot technology into its cellular architecture after acquiring the Canadian vendor last year. Nokia Siemens doesn’t make its own Wi-Fi gear but it partners with Wi-Fi access point and hotspot makers like Ruckus Wireless.

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Ruckus Wireless designs an open Wi-Fi hotspot with a secure connection

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:28:19 +0000

Wi-Fi is everywhere and more often than not it’s free for the taking. Pretty much everyone but airlines and fancy hotels are opening their networks to all comers. The only problem is that open networks are, well, wide open. They’re unencrypted and insecure, exposing users to a world of electronic eavesdroppers and attacks.

Hotspot maker Ruckus Wireless, however, has developed a kind of ad-hoc security system for open hotspots, which it plans to release next week with the next version of its access point management software. Called Open Secure Hotspot, the technology automatically generates encryption keys for any user who logs into an open Ruckus hotspot, granting them a secure connection within moments, Ruckus VP of marketing David Callisch told GigaOM.

Ruckus started out as a supplier of IPTV wireless streaming nodes and enterprise wireless LANs, over which security measures were much easier to enforce. But as Ruckus’s public access network business grew it found itself supplying more Wi-Fi gear that enterprises and service providers simply wanted open to the public, Callisch said. Those customers didn’t want their open networks turning into playgrounds for Firesheep, man-in-the-middle attackers and other internet nasties, Callisch said, so they pressed Ruckus to develop a secure form of open Wi-Fi.

The rather confusing diagram above details how the security software works, but here’s what it boils down to: Anytime an unknown user connects to an upgraded Ruckus hotspot he or she will receive the option of establishing a secure connection to the network. If the user opts in, Ruckus’s network gateway will generate what Ruckus is calling a dynamic pre-shared key, randomly generated for each device. Users can either input the key by launching an executable file sent by the gateway, or they can manually enter the key into their Wi-Fi settings.

It may not seem like the most elegant way of getting online in a hotel lobby or public square, but Callisch but it’s still a relatively simple process, and it beats the alternative – surfing the internet over a naked connection or installing virtual private network (VPN) software on the fly.

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Need instant Wi-Fi? Boingo makes it an iTunes in-app purchase

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:27:34 +0000

With over 600,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, Boingo Wireless has connectivity available all around the world. Signing up for a new Boingo account is relatively painless but when you need Wi-Fi in a hurry, who wants to waste time jumping through registration hoops? Folks with an iOS device don’t have to any longer: Boingo now supports iTunes payments for its services.

The special iTunes plan costs $7.99 per month and is available directly through the Boingo Wi-Finder app for iOS. The software also includes a VPN service. By using the iTunes in-app purchase, users can immediately get a Wi-Fi subscription for their iPod touch, iPad or iPhone. The subscription is an auto-renewal, however: if you don’t want to continue it on a monthly basis, you’ll have to cancel it.

This is a clever move by Boingo to make it easier for paid Wi-Fi access. There are two things I’d like to see in the future though. First, offer an in-app purchase for other Boingo plans, such as an hourly or daily basis. Currently, the company does offer Boingo Credits, which provide an hour of Wi-Fi access for $1.99, for example. Second, why not extend the same simple in-app purchase on Android through Google Wallet?

Either way, potential Boingo customers using iOS devices now have one less barrier to get connectivity in airports, shopping malls, restaurants, universities and other locations around the world.

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Why retailers should forget showrooming and turn to in-store Wi-Fi

laurielamberth — Mon, 06 May 2013 06:55:36 +0000

Showrooming. Everybody’s heard of it by now — conniving shoppers checking out a product in a retail store, then buying it online later for less. But today it makes more sense for retailers to shift their focus away from this practice and focus on harnessing the shopper’s in-store wireless experience for themselves and their brands. In addition to making mobile-data-hungry customers happy, customer-facing in-store Wi-Fi networks will bring the retailers themselves much value.

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Spark Core brings open hardware plus a cloud service to the internet of things

Stacey Higginbotham — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:10:32 +0000

What would you do with a Wi-Fi connected Arduino board and a cloud service that lets you write code to control your new Wi-Fi enabled computer? Would you design a refrigerator magnet that tweets? Maybe set your lights to flicker when your high school crush changes his or her relationship status? Or, why not build a multimillion-dollar product line of connected devices supported by the Spark Core service?

Spark Devices, a startup that’s part of the HAXLR8R incubator in China, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for its Spark Core hardware and cloud service that advertises the first two ideas, but CEO and Co-founder Zach Supalla hopes that the last example is where the market eventually ends up. The company’s Kickstarter is already funded after a mere 75 minutes (the goal was a relatively low $10,000), but the hardware isn’t the really exciting offering here.

Essentially the hardware is an Arduino with the nicest Texas Instruments Wi-Fi shield attached. A shield is what people add to their Arduino boards for extra functionality. They come in all kinds ranging from LCD screen to Wi-Fi. But the point is that anyone can make this: The real value is, as Supalla said, in the software.

In a chat this afternoon Supalla explained that the company’s four employees have been coming up with the Spark Core idea and platform since its first Kickstarter project (and business idea) failed. They had offered a connected light bulb called Spark Socket just a few weeks after the Philips Hue and the LIFX light bulb came out, and apparently the market for connected lightbulbs was subsequently saturated.

Supalla didn’t let that slow him down. Like several other companies he recognized that while there are hundreds of thousands of makers out there willing to play around with connected devices, there were literally millions of people who would love to have the same kind of toys that DIYers hack together in a more polished form.

But the price of delivering that polished form was too high for Spark Devices; plus, there’s more value in software as open hardware becomes more tenable for businesses building consumer-grade hardware outside of DIYers. So Spark really wants to make the same play that Electric Imp is attempting, offering connectivity in an easy-to-integrate package with the primary value being a cloud-based platform for hosting and writing the code to build services associated with those connected devices.

In short, it’s another platform as a service for the internet of things. Thus, with the hardware components it is most like Electric Imp, but on the software side it competes with a bunch of companies such as Carriots, ThingWorx and likely many more.

So for those of you excited about pulling together a Wi-Fi powered RC car or a connected web cam, this project and hardware is for you. But to build a big business Spark Devices is going to have to entice more than makers.

The good news is the team knows this, and has a small amount of seed funding to get it started. Let’s see what happens.

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Samsung’s $650 NX2000 Wi-Fi camera sits between camera phones and DSLRs

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:48:14 +0000

Samsung has a new smart, connected camera, the NX2000: the $650 device was introduced on Wednesday with a 20 to 50mm lens. This 20.3 megapixel camera has interchangeable lenses like a DSLR camera and both integrated Wi-Fi and NFC communications like a smartphone. The back of the camera uses a 3.7-inch touchscreen and the NX2000 can shoot 3D video with a special lens. I wasn’t a fan of the company’s recent Galaxy Camera with LTE at $549 plus data fees, but I like the NX2000, even with its $100 price premium over the older models.

Why? This is more a traditional camera that has integrated connectivity. The older Galaxy Camera with LTE seemed more like an Android device with camera capabilities bolted on. You won’t find Android on the NX2000, although I suspect the user interface is similar to the camera app on Samsung’s Galaxy S 4: Company representatives told me that Samsung is trying to use the same interface across phones and cameras.

Forgetting the interface and connectivity for a second, the NX2000 offers some impressive capabilities that you won’t find on a smartphone: shutter speeds up to 1/4000th of a second, a wide ISO range from 100 to 25800, and a large ASP-C sensor that is typically found on DSLRs. The NX2000 has a burst mode of 8 frames per second, which can certainly be useful, but we are starting to see high-end smartphones rival that.

Aside from taking advantage of a common user interface, Samsung is also cleverly using its own brand of Wi-Fi sharing. What used to be called AllPlay on Samsung phones and tablets is now Samsung Link. With it, you can wirelessly share photos from the NX2000 to Samsung mobile devices and smart televisions. The camera also supports the standard Wi-Fi Direct for sharing images and videos to other Wi-Fi devices. And connecting the camera to a phone or tablet should be easy with integrated NFC.

I spent a limited amount of time with the older Galaxy Camera and found the image quality to be slightly better than a smartphone, but not even that close to what I can get from a $700 DSLR. That’s the problem with grafting a point-and-shoot camera onto an Android-based Wi-Fi device: You get instant and simple connectivity but at the cost of image quality.

I suspect that won’t be the case with the NX2000, which looks like a camera with interchangeable lenses from the ground up, with the added benefits of Wi-Fi and NFC technology.

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Podcast: What you really need to know before buying connected devices

Stacey Higginbotham — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:30:07 +0000

In my time talking to people about the internet of things, we sometimes get so excited about the possibilities of the technology that we forget about the consumer who has to install it or has their own vision for connected living that they are trying to implement. So this week I brought my colleague Kevin Tofel onto the show to discuss how consumers should literally buy into the internet of things.

Tofel is our gadget and mobile device reporter (he has a podcast too!), and has been trying connected devices in his home (pictured) since 2010, so he has hands on experience setting up a home automation system using an Insteon-based system. But as, we discuss on the podcast, this limits the connected devices he brings into his home and it doesn’t work with his Nest thermostat for example. He offers some good tips for those planning their own connected homes such as planning ahead, picking a protocol and thinking about what you really want to achieve. Toward the end we even debate the merits of apps versus voice and gesture controls for telling our smart homes what to do.

(Download this episode)

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Show notes:
Host: Stacey Higginbotham
Guest: Kevin Tofel

Kevin’s 41 solar panels aren’t connected to his Nest thermostat. Should they be?
We offer two practical considerations consumers must think about before buying connected devices. Hint, one is the protocols you’ll be using.
Why you need to plan ahead when buying connected devices for your home.
Kevin predicts the death of the remote control and I complain about having too many apps.

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Podcast: How IBM uses chaos theory, data and the internet of things to fix traffic

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Video test: Does the Linkase for iPhone 5 really boost Wi-Fi signals?

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:42:39 +0000

Last month, I wrote about an interesting iPhone 5 case called the Linkase. And by interesting, I mean it claims to something that most cases can’t: Boost your iPhone’s Wi-Fi signal strength by up to 50 percent. It’s made by a company in Taiwan called Abosolute Technology. The case has a few minor design flaws in my opinion — the fact that it doesn’t work with a 30-pin to Lightning adapter is one — but more important is the wireless signal claim. Does it actually work?

In this brief video, I show you how the case works in locations where my wireless network generally sucks. We have 75 Mbps FiOS broadband service with a new 802.11 a/c router and yet in a few rooms, the Wi-Fi is generally useless. And outside of the home far from the router? Same story. Yet in both of these locations, you can see the positive impact made when use the Linkase with my iPhone 5.

Watch this video for free on GigaOM

The magic is in the slide-out EMW, or electromagnetic waveguide element, which works with phone’s internal Wi-Fi antenna for the boost. I’ve done plenty of tests with the $49 Linkase — not just what I show on video — and it generally works as advertised. Wi-Fi signals are typically much better with the EMW element extended although it really only works in areas with poor or marginal signal reception. Don’t expect Wi-Fi to be faster where it’s already pretty solid.

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9 in 10 Londoners will soon have free Wi-Fi in Tube stations

David Meyer — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:43:11 +0000

From June, almost all Londoners should be able to get free Wi-Fi access in London Underground stations, after O2 became the latest major carrier to sign up as a wholesale customer of Virgin Media.

Virgin Media has been providing internet access in Tube stations since the Olympics in mid-2012. The service was initially free for all, but after the Games, Virgin started charging on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for those who aren’t customers of Virgin Mobile or the company’s fixed-line services. EE and Vodafone – respectively, the UK’s first and third-largest mobile carriers — signed up as wholesale partners in November, ensuring that their customers would also get free access.

O2, the second-largest mobile operator, has now done the same, with its customers getting access from June. According to Virgin, those three carriers account for 89 percent of London’s population, leaving only overseas tourists and subscribers of other carriers – notably the smallest of the big four, Three – having to pay up for access.

“Having O2 on board is excellent news for the thousands of people that use the Tube every day,” London Underground strategy chief Gareth Powell said in a statement. “Most customers will now be able to access live travel information or use social media to plan their social life while on the move.”

London Underground also used the announcement to reveal 12 more stations that will be Wi-Fi-enabled, including Baker Street, Bank, Earl’s Court and Sloane Square. The total number of stations bearing connectivity is now 120 (the Tube network has 270 stations, although many aren’t in central London, as the Wi-Fi-enabled ones tend to be).

I’ve asked Three whether it’s talking to Virgin about getting its customers into the scheme, and will add the response in when I get it.

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Santa Clara launches free outdoor Wi-Fi on backs of smart meters

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:49:27 +0000

Residents of Santa Clara, Calif. not only have a new smart meter program but free outdoor Wi-Fi to boot. The city’s non-profit electric municipal utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP), is taking advantage of connected electric meters by integrating support for a second public unencrypted Wi-Fi channel, allowing the city to blanket the airwaves with free Wi-Fi.

SVP expects to support around 5,000 daily connections on the new public network, which has an SSID, or network name, of “SVPMeterConnectWiFi.” There’s no login, no password, nor credentials of any kind needed to use the outdoor wireless network. Utility data from the meters will be sent securely, however.

While the new network should add convenience around town, residents shouldn’t expect super high speeds: SVP says the connections will top out around 1 Mbps, which is slightly slower than 3G mobile broadband speeds. But for occasional use to check email, social networks and other light usage, those speeds should be more than sufficient; plus, you can’t beat the price!

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