Fon’s clones, more or less similar, start to show up. The latest one to appear is TLibre and it will operate in Marseilles with a wi-fi network based on the users’ hotspots. It’s different from Fon in the fact that users will have to pay 5 euros per month to be part of the system, in exchange of unlimited phone calls.
Intel wants to promote the development of wimax and low-cost PCs in Third World countries and, therefore, the company is going to invest one billion dollars throughout a period of 5 years. This project, known as “World Ahead“, aims to taking broadband Internet access to one billion people and to training 10 million teachers in the use of new technologies.
The Galician firm Softgal (Software Services of Galicia) has been the successful bidder to win A Estrada Dixital’s telecommunications network for 567.000 euros. According to La Voz de Galicia (The Voice of Galicia, a local newspaper), the offer includes both wimax and mesh in order to cover the whole town of A Estrada. Wimax will be implemented in the distribution network, to which 12 wi-fi links will be hooked, apart from the other 20 links that will cover the town centre.
In the USA, AOL will sell the wimax of Clearwire, which is the company that bought the Spanish Aló a couple of months ago. The new service will be launched under the name of “AOL High Speed”, and will stand as direct competition against ADSL and cable. During the first phase, the service will only be available in California and Florida and its minimum price will be 26 dollars per month.
Electric companies always looked to telecommunications out of the corner of their eyes. In the past, Endesa, Fenosa and Iberdrola (Spanish companies) invested in operators like Airtel, Auna, Euskaltel or Neo. Their businesses are very similar: to manage a network and offer services through it.
The North American company 2hotspot.com is offering a free software to create both free access and pay-per-use wi-fi zones. This programme allows us to create different types of hotspots: free access ones, shared ones (they allow us to share the costs of the connection depending on how much do users connect) and pay-per-use ones.
Wimax reaches the Mahgreb. Smart Link Communication has installed a wireless network in Algeria, which is so big, that it needs this kind of infrastructures to manage to offer broadband connections in all the country. Wimax will be implemented to give access to the Internet and to IP phone services.
This is an exhaustive article published in El Mundo about hospitals that are installing wi-fi aerials in order to improve their services to their patients. Thanks to wireless Internet connections, they can access to medical records quicker and from any point of the hospital, and they can also send prescriptions directly to the pharmacy.
Fon has come to an agreement with Neuf Cegetel, one of the main Internet providers in France, with 1.2 million ADSL clients. Soon, users will have Fon’s software in their routers, so that they’ll become Fon hotspots.