MuniWireless

Harold Feld has written an interesting analysis of Cablevision’s push into wide-area Wi-Fi networks. He writes:

“Cablevision’s wifi strategy has several things going for it. It is relatively cheap to deploy (as compared with winning licenses and building a wireless infrastructure) and can be deployed right away. Indeed, according to DSL Reports, deployment is well under way already. That gets Cablevision subscribers hooked on this form of mobility for their wireless services before Verizon can get its new 4G network up…

Truphone, the provider of software that allows you to make free or cheap calls via Wi-Fi on your mobile phone, has raised £16.5m ($32.7m) of Series B venture capital funding. Truphone’s Series A investors - Burda Digital Ventures, Eden Ventures, Independent News & Media and Wellington Partners – participated in the Series B round.

I have used Truphone to make free voice calls on Wi-Fi networks using my Nokia mobile phone, especially when I’m traveling, to avoid nasty roaming charges. Recently,…

If you have an iPhone, you can now make free VOIP calls over Wi-Fi, thanks to Fring, an application that has been available for devices such as Nokia’s Symbian phones. According to Fring, they are the first “native” mobile VOIP application for the iPhone. This is very handy for iPhone owners who are traveling abroad and want to avoid roaming charges when they make voice calls.

The city of Houston plans to re-launch its muni wireless initiative and has issued an RFI to review proposals for the project. It was only a matter of time before cities recovered from the shockwaves from EarthLink’s retreat from the muni market and began re-evaluating how to provide broadband coverage. Houston is the first major city, among the many that put wireless initiatives on hold in the post-EarthLink shakeout, to announce plans to move ahead and re-issue an RFI. Houston…

To the casual consumer, Voice over IP is a way to bypass long-distance toll charges and make low-cost - or even free - calls over the Internet. But to the savvy municipality, VoIP represents a way to combine data, voice and other applications onto IP (Internet Protocol) networks. The results can be startling, ranging from lower telecom costs to vastly improved communications between emergency responders.

VoIP was an emerging technology in the 1990s, backed by established network equipment providers such as…