Tag Archive for 'wireless'

New WiFi standard offers 100Mbps speeds

[Dar es Salaam, Tanzania]
WOW, just when you thought the benefits of WiMAX was going to steamroll over WiFi’s affordable ubiquity, things appear to be taking a 90 degree turn in favour of the old guard while the new hearthrob (er WiMAX) irons out a few compatability wrinkles. :-) Check this out:

With every man and his dog rushing to proclaim that the advent of WiMax will mean the death of Wi-Fi, proponents of the most popular local area wireless technology believe there’s a healthy future ahead for it – and it doesn’t depend on the laptop…

…A standards body is set to ratify 802.11n by September next year, giving Wi-Fi a throughput of 100Mbps and helping to bolster its potential uses in bandwidth-heavy situations. {source}

My thoughts
So, you mean WiFi is still alive and kicking? :-) This is a good thing because all the WiMAX “pushers” are selling their drugs (er hardware) at such ridiculous prices. Like, what are those guys smoking (or drinking)? :-) I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Once a WiFi phone comes out with a mobile Skype application attached to it, then all hell’s gonna break loose because those greedy mobile operators are going to be in some deep doo doo. Of course, this is dependent on cities and municipalities around the world offering free (or almost free) WiFi services to their tax paying citizens. Fat chance of that happening though. Government leaders cave in soooo easily to big business. Heck, why the frig are we even bothering to vote?

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Zantel ups the stakes with new mobile data service

[Dar es Salaam, Tanzania]
EVERYWHERE you go in Dar, you see Zantel’s snazzy new ads for its supposedly speedy mobile CDMA wireless service offering. Oh, I looove the kool green colours in their newspaper ads, too. It’s got me so pumped up to get on board the Z data train, and I haven’t even tried the damn service yet. :-) Now, being a nosey consumer who’s always on the lookout for better (er cheaper) ISP deals in these parts, I just had to call them up to get the scoop on their Z-Connect service. See the ad below! So, what’s the scoop? I thought you’d never ask.

The scoop:
Coverage? All of Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar & Pemba islands right now, and the entire country by the end of 2007
Price? Just top up in TSh 5000 ($4) or TSh 10,000 ($8) increments = TSh 56 per Megabyte = KSh 3.2 per Megabyte
Modem price? CDMA USB modem is TSh 150,000 ($118)
Download capacity? 90 Megabytes worth of data for every TSh 5000
Speed? 153 Kbps to 2 Mbps depending on the device used
Technology? CDMA 1X and EVDO, always on, high speed packet data network

Final thoughts:
By the way, I truly believe that CDMA/EVDO is vastly superior to the EDGE/GPRS service that Celtel and Safaricom (KSh 10 per Megabyte) are offering in terms of data broadcasting. All I can say is this: “Celtel, watch out for the big Z!” :-) As you can see, this is a great Go Africa go! story because the inclusion of yet another mobile wireless Internet competitor means lower prices, which translates into peeps actually getting down to some serious business. In other words, a heck of a lot more businessmen and businesswomen are going to be more efficient and effective as they go about their daily activities. The word on the street is that Zantel is well regarded as the mobile company with the lowest prices. You don’t believe me? Well take a peek here! Oh, I’m supposed to go to Zantel’s office today or tomorrow to take Z-Connect for a spin. I’ll highlight my thoughts here.

One other observation. Internet access rates are a heck of a lot cheaper in Tanzania than its neighbour to the North (Kenya). What the heck is up with outrageous ISP fees in Kenya? I thought they were supposed to be more advanced and waaaay ahead of everyone in these parts. But I feel that’s what happens when a monopoly like Telkom Kenya gets too much protection from the government for a very long time. Now it’s making Internet services too costly over there. Let’s just say I know people who pay $120/month for a 128K shared wireless broadband solution from Africa Online. Holy crap! With TTCL, you could get their blazing-fast ADSL service (2 Mbps down, 512Kbps up) at home for a paltry sum of TSh 40 per Megabyte (or TSh 40,000 per Gigabyte of download). Heck, you can’t even get those speeds from Telkom Kenya. In general, I hate telecom companies, but TTCL is not bad at all.

Newspaper ad:

NEED MORE SPEED?
Z-CONNECT. TANZANIA’S FASTEST, MOST AFFORDABLE MOBILE INTERNET.
Introducing Z-Connect; the fastest, most affordable, continuous high-speed mobile data network in Tanzania. Just install it in minutes, load prepaid airtime and start working, surfing or downloading in seconds. For instance, you’ll be able to download a 3 Mega Byte music track in 20 seconds, or open the average webmail or website in 7 seconds. And it’s mobile, you can do all of this anywhere, anytime. Now available in Dar es Salaam, and contrywide in late 2007.
For more information and the location of your nearest Z dealer, call 077 600 6000 or email
sales@zantel.co.tz

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Free WiFi on Seattle train

NOW this is really kool! It appears that this dude, Casey Halverson, of Seattle Wireless has created a home-brewed self-contained WiFi device that he totes along in his backpack. And get this. Whenever he’s going to or from work, he allows fellow commuters in the same train car to share his cellular connection. I’m sure this is an EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) cellular network, which is vastly superior to GSM for data communications as it’s based on CDMA technology. Somehow I think the folks here in Africa and Europe got scammed by GSM and it’s expensive implementations and promises, but that’s just my opinion. :-) Oh, you wanna see how powerful (er fast) EV-DO is? Well, take a peek at this blurb:

Compared to the EDGE networks employed by GSM networks, the EV-DO feature of CDMA2000 networks is significantly faster, providing access to mobile devices with air interface speeds of up to 2.4 Mbps with Rev. 0 and up to 3.1 Mb/s with Rev. A. HSDPA a competing technology for W-CDMA, along with the new Qualcomm Rev A modems have the ability to maintian both circuit switched voice and packet data calls from the same radio, this functionality is not available in Qualcomm Rev. 0 chipsets.{source}

Now, apparently users Casey’s “train network” are able to upload and download at 144 Kb/s which ain’t to bad considering it’s, um, FREE. :-)

Well, here’s the setup info if you’re in the Seattle area and want to try it out:

The open wireless node can be found in the first car of the last morning train and in Car 403 on the 5:10pm return trip. Use SSIDFreeInternetAccess” or “seattlewireless” to connect – You may have to assign yourself an IP in the range 192.168.0.0/24 and use the Default Gateway 192.168.0.1 as the DHCP is sometimes flakey.

I’m sooooo jealous!! :-) Get tons of EV-DO wireless gear here.

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iBURST: The Future of Wireless Broadband in Africa?

The future is wireless
Hi there!
How’s 2006 coming along for you so far?
Today, I have seen the future.

I have some very exciting news to share with you in the wireless broadband arena. I’m sure you’ve heard all the rage (or hoopla) about WiFi (define) and WiMAX (define). Right? Well, add iBURST to your vocabulary – courtesy of the savvy engineers at Japan’s Kyocera Group.

I’m convinced this technology would be perfect for many regions in Africa considering how costly it is to dig and install fibre for broadband Internet access. Furthermore, this is the correct solution for small islands like my homeland, Barbados, which is only 166 square miles and relatively flat. This is why I’m so excited!

iBurst draws first blood against WiMAX in Africa
In a nutshell, iBURST gives you fast wireless Internet access – anywhere, 24/7 – without any complicated requirements. Aaah, simplicity at work. :-)
Best of all, the technology uses the licensed 1.7 Ghz frequency, which means that your connections will never have any interference with other wireless technologies – unlike WiFi (also known as 802.11).

All I can say is “seeing is believing.” Thanks to a buddy (Gunnar Hillgartner) of mine who works at Africa Online, I was able to get a bird’s eye view of their new infiNet Broadband Wireless service offering. Again, I have to stress how simple it was to connect and start surfing on the Net.

All Gunnar did was insert a tiny PCMCIA (define) card into his Sony Vaio laptop, start up the Access Manager application, and he was surfing the Net at around 128 Kb/s (Note: other foreign ISPs provide 256K, 512K, and 1 Mb iBURST access). Then he proceeded to lauch Skype – my favourite VoIP (define) application – and had a crystal clear conversation with his parents in Puerto Rico.

No complications, no silly configuration headaches…nada. This is the way wireless broadband technology ought to work. Most importantly, customers will always beat a path to the doors of companies like Africa Online who can provide such an easy path to high speed wireless Internet access.

Advantage: You, the customer
If I were part of the management team at Telkom Kenya, I’d be looking over my back because the competition just got a little stiffer, and much more competitive. Chalk one up for the little guy! :-)

Another reason I’m so keen on iBURST (and WiMAX technologies) is because there are lots of rural areas in Canada that would benefit from it. Most of the time, the telcos and cable TV operators don’t bother to service these areas that are 30 minutes travel outside the big markets. And don’t forget, Canada is the 2nd largest country in the world with a population hovering around 30 million people. It just isn’t cost effective to wire most of these rural areas. I understand that.

Well, I’ll be meeting with some other folks at Africa Online to delve in more about the technology and what is required to implement it in other parts of the globe. I’m told that it’s in their best interest to see iBURST installed and used around the world so that it’d be easy for customers from similar wireless ISPs to “roam” since the hardware is the same.

An interesting WiMAX meeting
By the way, I was invited to a presentation last month by Italy’s Selex Communications to find out more information about their upcoming WiMAX product offerings. Although it was only a PowerPoint presentation given by Annamaria Raviola (Senior VP and resident Mathematician), the implications of the company’s robust, military-grade wireless technology are huge. Having the ability to transmit any where between 30-70 Mb/s over a distance of 30-50 Km will get any one’s attention.

Once again, the customer is ultimately the winner as all of these remarkable wireless technologies compete with each other further applying pressure on incumbents like Telkom Kenya to shape up or ship out.

Stay tuned as 2006 is shaping up to be an exciting year in the wireless broadband market.

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