Working Anywhere

HotSpots Are Hot

Let's face it, the idea of WiFi by the major mobile operators in the USA has been more trial and error, or when they chose to explore it, for the most part it was more like seeing someone dip their toes in the water in the past, as in reality only T-Mobile and to some extent, AT&T even played in the WiFi world with any real skin in the game.

Sprint, whose network folks operated a WiFi network in some airports (now part of Boingo) and AT&T, up until the Wayport snatch and grab, really was using WiFi more as a way to sell wholesale data capacity, than including it in their so called Wireless strategy. T-Mobile, long the leader in the WiFi game of the majors, pretty much walked away from their key access deal with Starbucks, in exchange moving their in ground network capacity over to their new 3G play. That left Verizon Wireless, which had the foresight some years back to stop parent Verizon from deploying hotspots in phone booths in New York City and elsewhere, when the wireline side of the house wanted to make WiFi access easy, as a benefit to their DSL customers, thereby offering something different than their competitors, the cable companies, Cablevision and Time Warner.

Ironically, Cablevision is mopping up the floor with Verizon in their backyard, and their WiFi play is showing why the cable guys are winning the wireline customer race, and creating their own mobile world at the same time. While Verizon initially viewed WiFi as a stunt from their land based competitor, history is starting to show that it was anything but a stunt, but a core plan by the cable giant to begin offering phone service over WiFi at some point in the future, but more than that, it means their customers have a single network to play on. A concept AT&T is chasing, but on a far larger level

So after all this mucking about, came the thaw, as somehow, as mobile broadband uptake started to outrun capacity, the mobile folks realized that WiFi was their savior. The first real snowcap to melt was in reality the Starbucks deal with AT&T, followed by AT&T's Wayport purchase. Then came the big ice flow, as Verizon began overall to start to bundle in WiFi for FIOS and other broadband customers.

This has all led up to this week's moves by Verizon and AT&T, both of whom seem to be in a race to get traffic off of their 3G networks and onto other networks.

Verizon's News for their mobile customers

AT&T's Move with McDonalds

For fast food lovers, now you can get WiFi for free with your burger and fries, plus linger around McDonalds. This is a huge boon to the road warrior because now between Starbucks and McDonalds, you can pretty much find WiFi all across America. Toss in a Boingo or Boingo Mobile account, and all the hotspots you'll ever need, pretty much become yours to connect to.

So, it makes you wonder, why the mobile operators never embraced WiFi until they needed it. Just think how much farther ahead WiFi would have been with just some plain old common sense on their part, instead of protectionist practices, that only ended up costing everyone more money.

Google StreetView Goes Inside

A few weeks ago at the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco, CA I spied the Google StreetView team taking photos outside of the hotel while I was waiting for a colleague.

Then a few minutes later the photo crew was wandering inside the lobby with tripod and cameras taking photos of INSIDE the hotel.

Is this something that's due up next for StreetView? Or is Google about to debut, what I'm calling InsideView? How will that be for you?

As I Take Off

I'm sitting on the tarmac at London Heathrow for what is the last flight for me this year out of London's largest airport. I'm connected with my Novatel Wireless MiFi 2352.

It's 3G and I made a Skype call from my MacBook Pro using client FreeTalk's Everyman headset as the person I needed to call was in Spain. The quality over the Vodafone network, using a Pay As You Go SIM, was perfect. As a matter of fact, it sounded like the other party was inside my head.

This stuff really works.

Send It To My Kindle

As device divergence grows, and the Amazon Kindle, is clearly the first market for an ecosystem to develop around on, we'll see inventive ideas come to life. In this case, it's a whiteboard capture and send to Kindle technology that GigaOm's Kevin Tofel has discovered.

Aimed at the education market, initially, I can see this being a huge piece of technology in the business sector as well, and very quickly. Why? Kindle apps are already on the iPhone and on PCs and Macs. These clients allow Kindle formatted content to be read and reviewed on more than just the Amazon device. Right now, services like Evernote rule this space, where you snap a photo with your mobile device and then can send the photo to their server as well as to others. Well imagine with KindleShare ( a made up name) how you can move these files not only to YOUR kindle, but to other peoples. Since Kindle data resides on the Amazon cloud, this won't be too hard to fathom.

But the reason I see this as so good for the business market, as well as the education market is everyone I know loves to use a whiteboard for presentations, but the capturing of the data is the hard part, with sharing of it on a consistent basis even harder.

One last reason this is so big. It creates a new file format that rivals PDFs for images. Think of what that does for Amazon.

Me, My MiFi and My Bag Of Tricks To Stay Connected

Call me the rogue agent. The nomad. The wanderer. But do call me connected.

I'm holed up in Madrid, for all the right reasons. It's a great walking town, and I need to walk. It's not Paris, where I have spent far too many days and nights, so despite the allure of Le Web, and 2200 people, some of whom I may want to see, I have other things to do. Like running my business and staying in touch, while not having the day slamming me from both ends. Madrid is an old world city with charm, old world grace, and a very heady cafe society. It's got the wine and food quality of Paris, but seems to be even more hip on fusion inspired cooking. Over the last three days I've dined in Peruvian, Asian, local Spanish, Catalonian and Basque oriented spots, and now am in a cafe that's local and tasty.

The MiFi 2352 from Novatel Wireless, a local San Diego company, with a global footprint 11 months ago debuted this credit card size, playing card deck thick mobile hotspot, or as I like to call it, a "PocketSpot." The version of the MiFi I carry is an unlocked unit, purchased long before Novatel introduced the GSM version in the USA as an enhanced (read locked and built for the USA carrier market.) It came from an overseas supplier known for their early on selling. So it was pretty much a no brainer that this was the must have device for the global nomad, like me, who is also a rogue agent, roaming the globe, seeing clients, colleagues, friends and future friends.

I call it the must have because after Friday, when I was on a train at 280 km/h and participating in a Skype audio conference over HiDef conferencing, around the coverage holes using my pay as you go SIM from MasMovil, the Spanish upstart MVNO, I had a religious experience or as some say the eureka moment. As someone who screams, "Stay Connected" for the last 11 years or so, that really means a lot to me. Saying it is one thing. Living it. Well, that's another.

To me, now more than ever, connectivity is what matters, and out in the middle of nowhere, on the plains of Spain, I'm rambling along and taking part in a conference call, listening, talking, texting and file sharing. No office. No wires other than my FreeTalk Everyman headset aside and the power cord of course, as my Club car seat on the train between Barcelona and Madrid had power. Talk about global freedom and mobility. My office has really become portable. Party A on the call was in San Francisco (Marin to be precise) over cable modem. Party B was in an office in Girona, Spain, a wonderful hamlet full of ancient buildings and charming restaurants--with amazing food and wine and here's me and my PocketSpot, my Mac Book Pro using the FreeTalk Everyman headset, an HD audio headset that costs less than 24 dollars, all the time being a part of the conversation.

Earlier I had called my wife. I didn't use Skype on the laptop, I used Truphone on my Apple iPod Touch. I also made a bunch of Truphone calls using my Nokia E71, but not over the WiFi as the train station wasn't wireless that I could find, but made calls with both over my own WiFi cloud, using the MiFi. I called Ken Rutkowski, of KenRadio.com fame using Skype. On the iPod Touch and even sent him Friday's report using the touch, a voice recording application, which then sends the recording by email. I pulled out my iPhone and using the camera, snapped some photos, then emailed them to Ken and a few friends. In Madrid on Saturday, I snapped off a few more photos for my wife, to show her an assortment of "bolsas", um bags at a shop on Calle Cava Baja. I then called her to "look" at the bags, using Truphone. Never once was Data Roaming turned on. Never once was a GSM call made. All the voice and data was going over my MiFi, at rates that are far more digestible than the roaming rates from AT&T on the iPhone.

This was HSUPA at it's finest. Connecting at theoretical speeds up to 7.2 megs but on networks that are built out right, MasMovil has roaming on both Vodafone and Orange here in Spain. Sure, I have Yoigo in my E71, but for data here I'm using the upstart, with an upstart product in the MiFi, or in the Mas Movil USB modem.

Last night, at dinner, as I dined solo, I took along my Mac Book Pro, took a big table and plopped the MiFi down, and immediately began writing and web searching. I was never alone. With Skype, Twitter and Yammer all my friends, colleagues and people I don't know but interact with were a click away. I was, have been, and now always am connected.

Sure, this is a bit of overkill. I do unplug, but my point is, with the MiFi tucked inside my coat pocket, a device like the iPod Touch, iphone, Nokia E71 or even my UMA enabled Blackberry, I have more connectivity than I did a year ago. Add in more and more WiFi hot spots that are up and running, and I'm connected. Oh, and one more thing. When I don't want to carry the MacBook Pro, I've got a 1.7 pound powerhouse in tow. It's the 7 inch Viliv S7. Pop on the Yamaha PSG-01S and you've got a multi-directional input mic and speakerphone that fills the room, yet is small enough to be in a small shoulder bag with the Viliv, the MiFi and their respective power cords/chargers.

So here's the net-net. Connectivity is getting more plentiful. A well built out network. A properly engineered device and a bit of planning means you can be so far away, and yet so near to those who are dear. I'm doing it more and more. So get out, and enjoy the world.

Note: For transparency sake Truphone is a client, as is In Store Solutions, makers of FreeTalk products and merchandisers of the Skype Shop.