Mobile & Wireless

As cellular service providers contemplate a future in which Wi-Fi connectivity is prevalent, voice-over-IP technology is becoming an integral part of their future plans.

While the rest of the world awaits WiMax, in South Korea the buzz is about WiBro, a broadband standard that uses the 2.3- to 2.4-GHz band and can be used in cars travelling up to 60 kilometers per hour. Samsung Electronics, recently elected to the board of the WiMax Forum, will work to bridge the two technologies.

The second generation of RFID technology is coming. According to a recent Gartner report, while the new technology will see only incremental technical enhancements, companies will need to adopt the new standards now to position themselves going forward.

The city of Philadelphia is pushing ahead with its plan for a city-wide wireless broadband network. But one observer thinks that the project will devolve into political battles with commercial broadband providers - without solving the problems the network is meant to address.

The wireless switch business isn't dead - but it is in a state of flux. As traditional networking giants like Cisco gobble up WLAN switch startups, we may soon see the distinction between wired and wireless networks disappear.

Research In Motion's stock dropped 4 percent on bad earnings news, but Co-CEO Jim Balsillie is upbeat. He says that the earnings dip was a one-time event due to the settlement of RIM's longstanding patent dispute, and was dismissive of the possibility that Microsoft's looming 'Magneto' project could unleash a BlackBerry killer.

French Minister of Industry Patrick Devedjian held a news conference Monday to outline his plans for the attribution of four licenses to operate WiMax wireless services across France, and network operator Altitude Telecom SA demonstrated how it will use WiMax technology to deliver telephone calls beginning June 1.

Trapeze Networks and Aruba Networks are normally rivals, but the two companies have worked together to propose a standard for "thin" access points - access points where most of the processing power would reside on a central controller - to the IETF.

Hewlett-Packard released a software update last week for its troubled iPaq h6315 handheld that promises to fix several issues that left users frustrated and caused T-Mobile USA to remove the device from its stores.

Commercial hotspot providers have long sought to help customers log on to Wi-Fi networks across the country. Now a new organization is looking to bring that same mobility to users of educational WLANs.

IBM is supplying advanced handhelds with video capabilities to Fresno police in order to help them with their work.