hotzone

Motorola launches mesh WiFi trade-in program

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:01:35 -0400

Motorola has launched a trade-in program for those cities who adopted first-generation muni-WiFi equipment early on and may be experiencing buyer's remorse. Some of the early deployments based on single radios haven't performed up to expectations, and Motorola wants to offer municipalities a "face-saving way" to partner with a more established provider. All mesh vendors, including the last holdout Tropos, offer two-radio solutions today. It looks like a smart way for Motorola to gain some good market share for its HotZone Duo products.

To read more about Motorola's trade-in program:
- take a look at this article from InformationWeek

Houston to use parking meters in muni-WiFi

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 20:01:39 -0400

The city of Houston is planning to begin using its parking meters for more than regulating parking and collecting revenue for the city. The first step in the plan is to make the city's parking meters able to be "fed" not by coins, but by the driver's credit card information, with each meter connected to a central system through WiFi in order to verify the creaidt card information. The next step is to turn these WiFi-enabled meters into elements in a city-wide WiFi hotzone. The WiFi parking meter idea is already being tested in the downtwon area, with roll out expected in the fall.

Hoston's CTO said that using this system to spread public WiFi throughout the city would be tricky, as parking meters are not evenly spread all over town. He said the city's been "going to school on this technology for a year and a half," and there has been a benefit to the delay. The costs to create a downtown hotzone have dropped dramatically from an initial estimate of $1 million to $250,000.

Houston's plan will no doubt be contested by the telco incumbents, many of which have been accelerating their effrots to thwart muni-WiFi efforts. SBC has been especially active in these efforts, even persuading a Texas congressman to introduce a bil which would federally ban muni-WiFi. SBC should be worried: Corpus Christi has created a WiFi network in a 24-sq.mi. area which includes its downtown and traffic corridors heading to the airport and Padre Island. The city is planning to offer similar covergae in a 147-sq.mi. area. The project will cost about $5.9 million.

For more in the Houston plan:
- see Dwight Silverman's Houston Chronicle report

ALSO: The state of muni-WiFi in Minneapolis. Report

Pronto, BelAir aid low-cost WiFi networks in Tex.

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 20:01:34 -0400

Pronto Networks and BelAir Networks will partner to offer service providers solutions to allow them to deploy complete large scale wireless networks. The companies' first joint deployment will cover the downtown/Alamo Plaza area of San Antonio. The joint offering combines the BelAir100 and BelAir200 Multi-service Switch Routers with the Pronto OSS for end-to-end metro scale solution.

The two companies are working with SA Unwired.net, Hotzone Integrators, and NAS Wireless to designe and deploy the wireless hotzone that covers several blocks of shops, restaurants, and businesses in the Alamo Plaza. The initial BelAir/Pronto installation in the Alamo Plaza area includes 4 BelAir100 and 1 BelAir200 Wireless Multi-service Nodes mounted on buildings in the downtown area. Initially, SA Unwired plans to charge users $3 dollars per hour or $10 dollars per day for wireless Internet access. As the network grows in functionality and users, SA Unwired expects pricing to change.

For more on the Pronto-BelAir collaboration:
- see Pronto's press release (pdf)

PLUS: BelAir also announced a new product which marks a new direction for the company and makes it more like some of its biggest rivals. The company was long a proponent of multiple radios in metropolitan-class wireless mesh hardware products, raising questions about the single-radio approach of competitors such as Tropos. Well, BelAir is coming out with the BelAir 50C, its first single radio mesh unit. Story