Comment from Darcy

I don't know about you, but when reading blogs, I often neglect to read the comments that others have posted in response to a bloggers entry. Recently Darcy, a Nokia employee, posted a response to a piece I had written on Microsoft vs. Nokia. NOTE: These are Darcy's own views not Nokia's (as Darcy points out). Periodically when a particularly interesting comment has been posted to the blog I will take a moment to draw your attention to it by posting a link. Here is Darcy's comment. I don't agree with everything... but there are some good clarifications and some good arguments on how Nokia is improving.

VoWiFi Almost Mainstream

When local business journals start running articles on Voice over WiFi, we have to be approaching the mainstream. Ok, so it was the San Jose (Silicon Valley) Business Journal that ran Janet Rae-Dupree's story "Wireless combines withVoIP to allow Internet phone calls" but this is the canary in the mine shaft.

The article highlights Boulder based Spectralink Corp which provides wireless VoIP infrastructure for office and factory environments... but link these systems back to a company's traditional PBX. Its an interesting half-way step. VoIP locally, but with POTS for the backhaul. The advantage seems to be the increased range afforded by WiFi over traditional wireless telephony technologies. And with multiple base stations and a mesh network... its sort of like running your own private cellular network.

And no pesky regulators...

Taipei Ahead in WiFi Rush

CNN is reporting today that Taiwan is rolling out the world's largest WiFi Grid.

"This will be a very ambitious venture for Taipei city because as far as we know, this is the only city that has tried to have a city-wide coverage of wireless service," Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou told Reuters.

The city expects that 90% of its area will have coverage by the end of 2005.