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

A report from Burton Group suggests that new emerging standard of wireless network (WLAN / WiFi) 802.11n (Mimo) will start replacing wired Ethernet 802.3 networks within the next 2-3 years as it improves throughput and range compared to actual 802.11 b/g.

IT senior analyst Paul DeBasi goes even further and says "IT professionals should start thinking now about how they will deploy, maintain and benefit from an all-wireless LAN."

This is a joke isn't it ? Even if I'm a fervent of wireless technology, I simply cannot imagine how wireless networks will replace actual wired networks. Here are the main reasons:

• Bandwidth: With 802.11n the maximum theoretical throughput (using 2 steams) will be 248 Mbps meanwhile Ethernet 802.3an (2006) already provides 10Gbps and next IEEE study group target is 802.3ba with both 40 and 100Gbps. I don't even speak about signal attenuation releated to distance and obstacles.

• Frequency spectum 2.4 GHz & 5GHz are very narrow and number of available channels are limited. So maintaining high speed links, large number of clients without facing frequency overlaps and other electro-magnetic interferences seems very unlikely.
• Electro-smog: With 802.11n the range covered will be larger but this will have undoubtedly have a negative impact on performance and signal strength specially when using ISM 2.4 GHz spectrum in a wireless crowed environment.
• VoWLAN capacity: Several studies have been done to determine, how many simultaneous calls one AP can handle. The number of simultaneous calls is 15 before observed speech quality is lowered via increased delay. (I assume the study also get rid of telephone wires).
• A "wireless only" corporate office means that PBX system also have to rely on wireless network, otherwise it would be complete non-sense to pull wire only for telephone and use wireless connectivity for computers.

Is this report a hoax or do they, at the Burton Group, have some enlighten prophets?

Source: ZDNet
Full report is available here (sign-in required)

Tags: 2007, 24, 802.11, art, ATT, blog, bt, capacity, ces, computer, computers, connectivity, CTU, delay, distance, ethernet, HP, ia, im, Impact, King, lan, light, MIT, network, nomadcom.net, phone, project, prophet, space, study, technology, Telecommunications, term, white paper, wifi, wireless, wlan, wp, www

Just finished to watch Hugo Ortega's video presenting HTC Shift and I must admit I like the HTC idea of bringing to us an UMPC (Ultra-mobile computer) which has 2 processors and 2 operating systems working independently on board.

Is the UMPC form factor market ready to take-off soon ?
Is the double O/S option chosen by HTC the winning one ?

A recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• The UMD worldwide forecast is for more than 8 million units in 2011.
• 2008-2010 will be key years for the development of a market inflection point of anytime/anywhere wireless connectivity that is necessary for widespread adoption of the UMD paradigm.

Some specifications: 

• Size: 19 x 13.5 x 3cm
• Weight: 0.9 kg 0.791 kg
• 7 inches display
• Resolution : 800×480 - 1024×600
• Operating Systems : Windows Mobile 6 & Windows Vista Business
• CPU's : Qualcomm 400 MHz for WM6 & Dual Core 800 MHz Intel A110 for Vista
• 7 days battery capacity running on WM6 only. 3 hours on Windows Vista
• Ram Memory : 1 GB
• Hard Drive : 40 GB
• Communication : WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0,
• Phone data : Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE - Tri-Band UMTS/HSPDA
• 1.3 MB built-in camera
• 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 VGA port
• 1 Finger print reader
• 1 SD Card reader
• Slide out Tilt display
• Price tag : 1200 euros (?)
• Availability : Q3 2007

The very interesting concept is the possibility to switch from one environment (e.g WM6) to the second one (Vista Business) and back in just the press of a button. Input can be done either using the QWERTY keyboard or the hand-witting recognition system.

Streaming video is available on Gottatobemobile.com or there is a 250 MB video available for download here.

Shift on HTC website  

Tags: 2007, 2008, 24, 802.11, arc, ATT, availability, blog, camera, capacity, card, card reader, ces, communication, computer, connectivity, development, forecast, gsm, htc, HTC shift, ia, im, IT World, keyboard, King, lan, memory, MIT, mobile, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, nyt, pda, phone, press, reader, resolution, search, shift, space, Telecommunications, ultra-mobile, UMPC, usb, video, vista, web, website, wifi, windows, windows mobile 6, windows vista, wireless, WM6, world, worldwide, wp, www