Jambo

With the increased number of WiFi hotspots, and the ability to make phone calls through the Internet (VoIP), expect to see more and more phones with WiFi included. Imagine being able to make calls for free or close to it anytime you are in a hotspot, where it is at home, at a hotel, in the airport, or at a Starbucks. Motorola, IDT Corp, Vonage, SpectraLink Corp, and Vocera Communications, all have or plan to release WiFi enabled phones by the end of the year.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040510/ap_on_hi_te/wi_fi_phones

The Internet Home Alliance, a cross industry collaboration of companies such as Cisco, HP, Herman Miller, Microsoft, Panasonic, among others, has launched a hotspot called “Connection Court” in The Shops at Willow Bend, an upscale mall in Plano, Texas. The hotspot will provide free Internet service, as well as laptops, conference tables, printing, copying, and faxing. It will also have 52 inch plasma TVs for live business news. The pilot’s goal is to discover the ideal environment for mobile workers. I will try to stop by to check it out some time.

http://www.internethomealliance.com/pilots_projects/career/mobile_worker_pilot/index.asp

The number of U.S. hotels that are WiFi enabled has grown from 500 in 2002 to 2,500 in 2003 to 6,000 in 2004 and is expected to reach 35,000 hotels by 2008 (Pyramid Research). This growth is being fueled by the increase in WiFi users, which Pyramid estimates to reach 707 million by 2008, up from 12 million in 2003.

Top WiFi Hotels:
Best Western International
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Hilton Hotels
Hyatt Hotels
Intercontinental Hotels
Marriott International
Microtel Inn & Suites
Omni Hotels
Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts

Click here for the url.

From this Pyramid report – US usage of WiFi will surpass 2.5G and 3G by 2007.

According to the new Pyramid report The New Wireless Road Warrior: How Business Travelers Are Shaking Up the Telecoms Industry – from Wi-Fi to 3G, in the years ahead more Americans will consume mobile data using Wi-Fi than using 2.5/3G

Intel’s 2nd annual “Most Unwired Cities” survey ranks the top 100 US cities and regions for the greatest wireless Internet accessibility. The top 10 were:
1) San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland, CA
2) Orange County, CA
3) Washington, D.C.
4) Austin-San Marcos, TX
5) Portland, OR-Vancuver, WA
6) Seattle-Bellevue-Everett-Tacoma, WA
7) Bergen-Passaic, NJ Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ
9) San Diego
10) Denver

To see the full lists go here.
(more…)

Pyramid Research has an interesting report about hotspot growth.

From the report:

“By the end of 2002, there were less than 20,000 hotspots globally,” said John Yunker, analyst at Pyramid Research. “The pace of hotspot deployment has quickened over the past three months. We are now on track to see more than 100,000 hotspots deployed by early 2005.”

According to a document published by IDC, the Worldwide Hotspot Forcast, hotspot users will number nearly 25 million by 2008.

From the publication:
Over the next five years, IDC expects the hotspot market to evolve through two distinct phases – two years of massive network footprint expansion followed by three years of intense relationship building among carriers, network operators, and service providers. The first phase will be characterized by dramatic growth in both the number of hotspots and hotspot users. Over the next five years, IDC projects the worldwide number of available commercial hotspots will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 57% while the number of worldwide hotspot users will approach 25 million.

The IDC Study