if connected

Today, BT and FON have announced that BT home broadband users will be able to share their DSL connections and become Foneros. In return, such users will be able to use any FON WiFi hotspot, anywhere in the world. The main focus will be a software upgrade of BT’s existing home hubs to enable FON support. This is similar to the Neuf-FON model in France.
This service is usable with all types of consumer devices: from laptops (which are becoming increasingly important for consumers); iPods such as the new Touch; Nintendo DS’s; as well as dual-mode WiFi-cellular BT Fusion phones.
FON is a natural partner for BT. While BT is one of Europe’s historic operators, in the mobile space it’s a disruptive player not an incumbent. Formerly, BT was owner of infrastructure-owning mobile operator O2 (then Cellnet), but now BT is just a mere MVNO and so benefits from all technologies which enable it to avoid paying MVNO-related fees.
BT has much to gain from leveraging FON. The equity stake BT is taking in FON (value undisclosed) is a sign of how important BT believes WiFi to be to its ‘total broadband’ proposition. But it will take time for the benefit to appear in BT’s bottom line. For now, the FON partnership is about adding value for BT customers and to help to position BT as an innovative sexy company.
Similarly to BT, France’s Neuf has a similar partnership with FON. While the Neuf-FON link up was announced last year, the service also went live this week, also with a big fanfare.
But I’m especially pleased to see BT making a product announcement where the service is available (almost) immediately. This is very unusual for BT. Such rapid delivery will help BT with its innovative positioning: Sexy Internet companies rarely take months/years to deliver on a new product announcement.
Note for potential users – there are a few initial limitations and quirks (clients should ask us). Many of these will be fixed between now and March.

I’m listening to Sprint-Nextel’s 4G president talking about their WiMAX deployment, at the the Wireless Event in London. He’s arguing, with some justfication, that WiMAX is best optimised for data connections and has tremendously more capacity than cellular.
The event covers both WiFi and WiMAX.
However, I’m posting this from a 3.5g / HSDPA cellular data connection. It just seemed easier than searching for a WiFi access point. This is true even though I am sure there is free WiFi, given the nature of the conference.
Speeds on this cellular connection are fine too according to my favourite speed test:
910Kbps download.
219Kbps upload.
This is the challenge we wrote about earlier this year in this report. and this one. WiMAX is very much a technology searching for its best market. Timing is everything, both of WiMAX rollouts and of the competition.
Good to see a presentation from a WiMAX proponent — Sprint-Nextel — that understands the strengths, weaknesses and timings of that competition.

Two rather different stories:
The Financial Times reports that US coffee shops are limiting the hours that WiFi is available, as it spoils the atmosphere and turns everyone into zombies…

“There are times when 90 per cent of the people in here are surfing the internet,” says Jen Strongin, co-owner of the Victrola Coffee & Art cafe in Seattle. “It has really changed the atmosphere.”
Students of coffee-house culture call it the “zombie effect” – people staring silently into their computers, oblivious to those around them.
Zombies are not only anti-social but also bad business. A single laptop user can take up a whole table. It is not unusual for web surfers to eke out a single cup of coffee for hours.
“We have people in here for six, even eight, hours without buying a thing,” says Ms Strongin.
[because of course, the small coffee shops don't charge for the WiFi]

The BBC focuses on a South Wales church where the minister was upset that the WiFi hotspots outside couldn’t penetrate the thick walls. He approached BT and asked them to install an Openzone hotspot. Lets hope hallowed ground has a different effect to caffeine and background jazz muzak.

Most business technology observers are just as afflicted by fashion, and market bubbles, as mainstream tabloid journalists. Over the last couple of years public WiFi has gone from enormous hyperbole, into ‘sleepwalking growth’ mode, with few outside the WiFi industry now paying it much attention.
While KPN has 327 hotspots in the Netherlands, having planned 650 by the end of 2004, they continue to roll out new locations. KPN plans 112 new hotspots in the Netherlands in the next two months, and KPN is not alone in expanding WiFi coverage.
Alongside this, as we’ve written about many times at Jupiter, WiFi continues to do well in the home.

There’s too much talk of WiFi on planes. Who’d really used WiFi in the cramped surroundings of a passenger jet? They’re clearly just trials for the real target market: ocean liners. Take the JupiterResearch high road and travel on the new Queen Mary 2 which is equipped with WiFi broadband.
For related information, see this story on Boeing’s moves out to sea Broadband Service Ready To Set Sail

WiFi coverage is growing yes, but by how much is really hard to say. This story: Wi-Fi Networking News: Aggregators’ Counts Require a Close Look fits with my experiences researching Europe.
However, it’s not just the out and out aggregators that mix ‘owned and operated hotspots’ with hotspots accessible through roaming. See Wi-Fi in Europe – Which Locations Will Deliver Revenue and When? for our take the hotspot landscape, revenue potential, and public WiFi’s prospects.

While our European consumer research shows strong interest in the many advantages of WiFi, Intel is still choosing to ship it’s next desktop PC technology, Grantsdale, with the WiFi features switched off. Why? Could it be that despite Intel’s enormous WiFi marketing efforts that WiFi is simply too complicated for the majority of consumers to set up safely?
Certainly a few anecdotes here in the UK suggest Intel’s right:
In my London home there is an open unsecured WiFi connection. I guess it’s one of the houses across the street but have no idea which one; it definitely has broadband though judging by Internet speed. A friend just switched to broadband; despite buying the DSL modem from their ISP, and being talked through the setup process by the ISP’s support line, they were left with no security settings enabled on either their XP laptop or the WiFi DSL router. Businesses fare little better. In both Jupiter’s new and old London offices there are several open WiFi networks.
Clearly, enabling WiFi on new desktop computers, when the PC’s purchasers may not even be aware of the presence of WiFi capability would cause many greater issues. Intel is right to set WiFi to “off” out of the box.