Free and universal Wi-Fi community builder "FON Movimiento" is spreading fast across Europe. In September an agreement was signed with Cegetel, France 2nd largest ISP to introduce the free "Neuf Wifi FON" service. This service offers Neuf Cegetel's subscribers to share some of their Internet bandwidth through their "Wifi Neuf Box" and to become part of the FON community. Cegetel estimates that by end of 2007, 1 million of "Neuf Box 4" will be ready to support this new service. 

Members of the FON community get free and secured Internet access through any "FON Spots" Wifi Access Point around the globe. 

Earlier this month in United Kingdom, BT also joined forces with FON and offer to 3 million BT's broadband customers to share their Internet access and join the FON community.

Now it is the Geneva city council to sign a convention with FON to consolidate the small existing wireless network available in some key locations of the city. The city council envisages to distribute up to 500 FON routers to its citizens who may wish to share their Internet Access via the FON community (complete story, in French, on TSR telecom blog).

Non-member of the FON community will be able to get access to the Internet through FON Wifi networks using a 3 USD/day fee "FON Access Pass".

Let's hope this solution will be more successful than previous attempts as most of them were sunk by politicians and endless administrative discussions.

" Post Tenebras Lux" ? 

Tags: 2007, 24, access, agreement, art, ATT, blog, bt, ces, citizen, community, customer, europe, fon, fon movimiento, free, geneva, geneve, HP, ia, im, internet, internet access, King, lan, location, map, Mobile Communications, network, neuf cegetel, nomadcom.net, post, share, story, sun, telecom, Telecommunications, uk, wifi, wireless, world, worldwide, wp, www

Hewlett-Packard has presented its new iPAQ handheld devices. Among them the 600 series a two-in-one 3G phone and navigation device and the 900 series which comes with a full QWERTY keyboard.

Both models share the following specifications: 

• O/S : Windows Mobile 6 Professional
• CPU : Marvell PXA270 520 MHz
• Memory : 128 MB SDRAM and 256 MB ROM
• aGPS (assisted navigation)
• Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri Band HSPDA
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth 2.0
• USB 2.0 connector, MicroSD card slot
• 3 Megapixel camera

900 series model only (within brackets, specs of HTC C730)

• Size: 113 x 64 x 16mm (112.5 x 62.5 x 13.5)
• Weight: 146 gr. (120 gr)
• Battery: 1850 mAh (1050 mAh)
• Display: 2.46 in TFT with 65000 colors (2.4 TFT 65000)
• Price Tag: ~800 USD (~520 USD)

Will this model becomes a serious competitor to HTC Cavalier (C730, replacement of S620 Excalibur) which is a 3.5G phone, smaller, lighter and cheaper but does not come with GPS navigation and tactile screen?   

All info about new iPAQ on HP Mobility 2007
Availability: October 2007

Sources : Mobilitysite, Blog de Pierre

Tags: 2007, 802.11, 900 Series, 914, api, asia, ATT, availability, blog, Business Messenger, C720, C720w, C730, camera, card, Cavalier, ces, dopod, excalibur, gap, gsm, handheld, Hewlett Packard, HP, htc, ia, im, iPAQ, keyboard, lan, light, memory, messenger, mobile, Mobile Communications, mobility, models, nomadcom.net, pda, pet, phone, press, public, S620, screen, share, space, Telecommunications, usb, windows, windows mobile 6, WM6, wp, www

Whisher, a Spanish start-up, backed by Switzerland’s leading phone company, Swisscom, and the venture firm Benchmark Capital Europe is apparently very active for few month now. The principle of Whisher is that Wireless Access to the Internet should be free and accessible from everywhere which is basically the same concept than FON Movimiento, except that you don't need to purchase any specific hardware.

Whisher' users are requested to download an application through which they can share their wireless access (works also with WEP or WPA connections) with other Whisher members 

The newly released version 2.0 beta of the software offers more than just storing and encrypting connections' passwords such:

• Wireless connection manager
• WiFi sharing
• Chat with other users connected on the same wireless access point.
• Multi Instant Messenger support (Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, GoogleTalk, Twitter, Jabber)
• File Transfer (with users sharing the same wireless AP)
• LAN Support
• GeoLocation
• Other Networks connections (access via commercial access; hotspot, etc..). FON is supported too.
• Around You. Gives you informations about coming events, restaurants around the wireless connection you are currently using.

New services that should be available soon :

• Voice Support
• Global File Sharing 

Plateform supported : Windows XP, Linux, Mac O/S. Vista not available yet.

The software is still beta and some stability and registation problems have been reported. More information on their Blog

Tags: 2007, access, aim, api, art, blog, capital, ces, connection, connections, europe, event, fon, fon movimiento, free, global, google, HP, ia, icq, im, instant messenger, internet, lan, location, messenger, Mobile Communications, msn, network, nomadcom.net, password, phone, problems, release, sco, services, share, sharing, swiss, swisscom, switzerland, Telecommunications, twit, Twitter, user, vista, whisher, wifi, windows, wireless, wp, www, XP, yahoo