The Associated Press reports today that Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has signed a deal with a noted, 3-letter Spanish speaking WiFi company to create a network connecting schools and government offices and shared with citywide surveillance cameras.
Which company is this? (more…)
And Verizon announces a speed upgrade to their FiOS broadband service.
It is with great joy that I learn Austin, TX will be one of the first cities served by Sprint 4G WiMax service! Costing $55/mo, this will provide 2-4Mbps speeds, and could become the broadband of choice wherever cablemodem is not available, or only inferior DSL can be provided. Service will be available in Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, Washington DC, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and Seattle by April, 2008.
sprint-announces-wimax-rollout-cities
While Verizon still won’t be bringing FiOS to Austin, TX any time soon, they’ve announced a speed upgrade of 2.4Gbps downstream and 1.2Gbps upstream, (to be shared among groups of 32-64 users)! No word on any price hike, but the upgrade will occur first in nearby Lewisville, Texas early in the second quarter of this year, followed by Kirklyn, Pennsylvania next summer. This may not mean the end of cablemodem service, but it just might encourage them to give current customers yet another “free upgrade” to stay competative!
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/82579
http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2007/verizon-to-begin-deployment.html
As an intrim solution to the problem where Linux will expose wireless encryption keys to the root account, Whisher has released a replacement version of the Linux client. Folks who use Linux on their computers, and who wish to use a Whisher hotspot, will need to be a buddy of, or private owner of the hotspot. In other words, if you use Linux, you will not be able to use just any Whisher hotspot you stumble across, you’ll need to have elevated privledges with the person who hosts that wifi AP. Mac and Windows clients will continue to use open Whisher hotspots.
http://blog.whisher.com/2007/03/22/linux-version-of-whisher-released/
http://www.whisher.com/en/download.php
Macintosh Whishers should download the new Mac Client, released March 5th:
http://blog.whisher.com/2007/03/06/release-2007-03-05-of-the-mac-client-available/
Dan Berte of WirelessIsFun blog and guest AustinTX of El Fon Blog discuss WiF, Fon, Whisher, Hamachi and chitchat about the current world of shared wifi.
I’m afraid I sound totally retarded, but it was great fun. Definetly good for a laugh. 
Dan will be interviewing prominent online figures about once a week, and may have a very special suprise for us in episode #2.
Here’s a very unusual video made by some Fon staffers in Madrid to celebrate Fon’s first birthday. It is in Spanish, with very, very tiny English subtitles.
It’s been a year so far. Much has happened, and there have been breathtaking highs and lows. Fon is still hanging in there, and by Martin V’s accounts, growing rapidly. No stats available on that, but we’ll take his word for it.
The year started out with Fon welcoming everyone to join in and express themselves. The “Revolutionary” Movement image has faded dramatically, and Fon has been following a bewildering course and not answering their emails. Fon still holds my interest for the time being. As unpredictable as they are, anything can happen.
A number of other wifi-sharing and related companies have started up during the same year, and it gives much pause for thought. My first thought is usually about how something can benefeit Fon by solving existing problems. Fon seems to feel like developing their own measures, when existing ones can be bought off the shelf.
I believe there will be a point we reach, after which someone will take the best that several semi-hopefuls have to offer. This could build something truely impressive, which will seem obvious by hindsight.
