News - Wireless

A Web site for matching buyers and sellers of wireless spectrum went live on Friday.

The site SpecEx.com, which is run by a start-up called Spectrum Bridge, is aiming to make sense of an existing secondary market for wireless licenses, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The Federal Communications Commission periodically auctions off wireless spectrum licenses. Most of the spectrum licenses are used to provide cell phone service or to provide two-way radio communication or for emergency personnel. But there is some spectrum that is not used and lays fallow.

Big wireless operators, such as Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint Nextel, regularly trade these small slivers of spectrum licenses as do smaller license holders like universities or religious broadcasters. But now Spectrum Bridge's Web site will help make this process more efficient allowing sellers to know the clear value of their spectrum and allowing buyers to know who is selling spectrum, the Journal article

A spokesman for the FCC told the Journal that Chairman Kevin Martin has always supported the idea of secondary markets, which should prove to be a big help since buyers and sellers will need to get FCC approval for the transfer of licenses.

While the idea sounds like a good one, the article also points out that other wireless marketplaces haven't done so well in the past. The financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald launched a wireless spectrum market place that has failed to gain traction.

But as less spectrum is available for auction and licenses become more scarce, it might help spur adoption of the Spectrum Bridge marketplace. This is especially true after the FCC recently completed two major spectrum auctions in the last couple of years. What's more, as cable operators and other companies, such as Google, become interested in wireless and mobile services it creates more demand for wireless spectrum. And the SpecEx.com could end up being the place to go. Verizon Wireless told the Journal that it could be both a buyer and a seller of these licenses. But AT&T declined to comment and Sprint was unavailable for comment.

The mobile handset market is going from bad to worse as Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones, said Friday that it's lowering its third-quarter market share outlook due to the weakening global economy.

The Finnish company has dominated the mobile handset market over the past few years. Last quarter, it reported it had grabbed 40 percent of the entire worldwide market. At the time, executives were confident that the company would maintain this level. But now, as the worldwide economy worsens, executives say they expect Nokia's market share to slip slightly in the third quarter. That said, the company still expects to increase its market share for the year.

Executives blame the shift in expectations on a weakening global economy and a reluctance to engage in a price war with certain competitors. Even though the company expects to increase device sales volume by 10 percent or more this year, Nokia executives say that consumer confidence has been shaken and prices are falling. The company didn't specifically point fingers at which competitor had cut prices.

Nokia has several new handsets in the pipeline to be launched during the quarter, but sales of some of its midrange products have been slower than expected, the company said. Again, the company hasn't specified which handsets have not been selling as well.

Nokia isn't the only handset maker to feel the pinch of a slowdown. Samsung Electronics said during its second-quarter earnings call that it also sees the weakening economy affecting its sales in the second half of the year.

The second quarter was already slow in the U.S. market where sales were down 13 percent, according to the NPD Group. Nokia has relatively little market share in the U.S., but slowing sales in other developed regions such as Europe, Japan, and Asia will have a great impact on the company. Still, Nokia sees developing markets as its source of growth in the near future.

The implosion of EarthLink's citywide Wi-Fi business may have been the best thing that ever happened to Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit charged with helping Philadelphia bridge the digital divide.

Independence Hall, Philadelphia

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

Now under new management, the citywide Wi-Fi network that was originally funded and built by EarthLink will have a new business model, better coverage, and a new contract that should make it easier for Wireless Philadelphia to meet its primary goal of getting low-income families online.

"The new network owners are supposed to have a much more sustainable business model," said Karen Perry, director of the Connected Communities team for the Knight Center of Digital Excellence. "The fact that they are also focused on wired and wireless access will also improve the quality of the network, which could be very important for providing the nonprofit a more vibrant set of options."

Philadelphia had big plans to bring broadband and the Internet to the masses when it announced in 2005 that it was building the nation's largest Wi-Fi network spanning some 135 square miles. Wireless Philadelphia, a city-sponsored nonprofit, was created to provide the city's poor with an entire package of services to get them online. This package includes not only low-cost broadband access, but computers, training, technical support, and new applications.

While EarthLink provided a good portion of the initial funding for Wireless Philadelphia to get off the ground, the restrictive exclusive contract in some ways hamstrung the nonprofit's efforts and tied its success to the success of the network and the technology.

When EarthLink decided earlier this year that it was exiting the citywide Wi-Fi business, it looked like Wireless Philadelphia was doomed. But days before the network was to be shut down in June, a group of local investors swooped in and took over the network, promising a new business model and a revitalized plan.

Network Acquisition Company, which acquired the network, hasn't talked publicly about the details of its new plan, but it has hinted that its strategy will differ from EarthLink's. For one, it will use wired infrastructure to provide backhaul capacity to the Wi-Fi network. This should help improve coverage and capacity issues. NAC also plans to sign up more business customers and city agencies as anchor tenants of the network, guaranteeing bigger chunks of revenue to keep the network up and running.

These improvements, along with a new non-exclusive contract, could liberate the nonprofit and help it expand its reach and effectiveness in the community. And if Wireless Philadelphia can show successful outcomes for individuals and the city as a whole, it could serve as a model for policy makers looking to form a national broadband policy.

Defining the digital divide

There's been a lot of chatter over the years about the digital divide or the idea that there is a great chasm between people who have access to technology such as computers and the Internet, and those who do not. While some 68 percent of the U.S. population has access to the Internet via broadband or dial-up connections, there are still millions of people across the country who do not have any access at all.

Overwhelmingly, these unconnected individuals tend to be minorities and people with low education levels. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only 57 percent of African Americans and 37 percent of Hispanics have Internet access. And only 29 percent of people who have not graduated from high school are connected to the Internet.

It's difficult to gauge what the impact of this exclusion means. In the past, Internet access was viewed as an unnecessary luxury, a tool used to send e-mail and casually surf Web sites. But increasingly, the Internet has become an important tool for getting information about and access to just about everything from health care to social services. It's used as a tool to engage parents in their children's education. And as newspapers shed their classified listings, it's become an important tool for looking for jobs.

"Digital inclusion has traditionally been seen as a charity initiative," The Knight Foundation's Perry said. "But that is rapidly changing. Increasingly, cities of all types--urban, suburban, and rural--are linking universal digital access to economic development imperatives."

From the beginning, Wireless Philadelphia's goal has been to provide broadband service to families who have never owned a computer and have little or no online experience. The group believes that getting these families online will increase their access to educational, employment, and life opportunities.

But it will also have big benefits for the city, such as reducing crime and unemployment, improving public health and social service efficiency, and increasing educational excellence.

"It's nearly impossible to apply for an entry-level job today without having basic digital skills and Internet access," Greg Goldman, CEO of Wireless Philadelphia said. "And there have been studies that show patients who access information online about HIV AIDS, hypertension, or diabetes have better health outcomes."

Partnering for results

Wireless Philadelphia has developed a somewhat unique approach to solving this complicated problem. For example, the group provides an entire package of services, which includes free or subsidized Internet access, a new or refurbished computer and modem, training, and technical support through nonprofit partners, which focus on specific needs, such as maternal health, job placement, or education.

"It's not just about simply providing cheap access to broadband," Goldman said. "It's about delivering a total package and finding a suitable way to deliver that package. You can offer $15 a month DSL, but without the programs that provide a way for people to get the hardware, the training, and the technical support it won't be successful."

A key part of Wireless Philadelphia's approach is its partnerships with other nonprofits. For example, Wireless Philadelphia offers its package to participants of a statewide welfare-to-work program. In exchange for completing the necessary requirements for the program, each individual receives a "digital inclusion package."

The package becomes an enticing incentive for welfare-to-work clients to complete their training, and it provides a long-lasting tool that clients can use long after the training program ends. Working with partners also means Wireless Philadelphia doesn't have to deal with screening and qualifying clients for its program, reducing the cost and hassle of administering the program. It also integrates the broadband bundle with a specific need. And finally, it helps provide the necessary funding for the project to continue. Currently, Wireless Philadelphia has 30 funding sources and more than 30 community partners.

While Wireless Philadelphia's ambitions have always been big, under the old deal with EarthLink, the nonprofit was tied to the partially built, and often unreliable, Wi-Fi network. From the earliest stages of deployment, EarthLink Wi-Fi users complained of poor signal quality indoors.

Testing the Wi-Fi network in Philadelphia.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

Even outdoors, some parts of the network perform better than others. For example, on a recent visit to Philadelphia, I stood directly under an EarthLink access point and discovered I was only getting download speeds of 768 kilobits per second and uploads of 494 kbps when I ran a Speakeasy broadband test. EarthLink had advertised the service at 1.5 Mbps per second.

Of course, there are many possible explanations for why I was getting these much slower speeds. Maybe the network was congested because there were a lot of users in the area. Or perhaps there was an issue with the Wi-Fi mesh or the backhaul. Or maybe the test was flawed. Whatever the cause, performance was not optimal.

NAC, which now owns the EarthLink network, and Tropos, the company whose equipment has been used to build the network, declined to speak to me for this article. Instead, their spokespeople said the companies would talk more about the network later this month when details of the new business plan are ready.

So far, what is known about NAC's approach is that the company plans to finish building out the network, which is 80 percent complete, within the next 12 to 18 months. And it plans to use a hybrid Wi-Fi and wireline technology to improve coverage and capacity.

But more importantly for Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit will no longer have to rely on one network provider for broadband access. Starting this fall, Goldman said that the group will approach other network operators about working with them to offer their broadband access as part of the Digital Inclusion bundle in areas of the city where it makes sense. If providers, such as Comcast and Verizon Communications, are willing to work with Wireless Philadelphia, it could greatly improve the reach and effectiveness of the program.

"Reliable network access is key to our success," Goldman said. "If our clients can't reliably connect to the Internet and get consistent, speedy connections, they won't use the services.

Wireless Philadelphia is also supporting Google's petition to the Federal Communications Commission to open up unused wireless frequencies called "white spaces," which sit between digital TV channels, to help expand the availability of inexpensive broadband access.

"Wireless Philadelphia is dedicated to closing the digital divide and believes the movement to open white spaces can greatly assist this effort nationally," the group said in an e-mail urging its supporters to sign the petition. "Continued technological innovation in this area will help make critical communications tools more open and available for everyone."

But in the end, Wireless Philadelphia must prove that broadband access matters. As an initial step toward this, the group is working with the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning to conduct a "Rapid Assessment" of the impact of the Digital Inclusion program to date. Initial results should be available later this year.

If the results of this assessment, as well as future assessments, can show marked improvements for individuals and eventually entire communities, it could help fuel the movement for a national broadband policy.

Criminals can remotely destroy incriminating evidence by exploiting security features on devices such as the Apple iPhone, a leading digital forensics expert has warned.

The head of the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office digital forensics unit, Keith Foggon, cautioned that the ability to remotely wipe the iPhone and other smartphones used by enterprises could be exploited by lawbreakers.

Foggon said: "The 3G iPhone is brand new; there are not many tools for dealing with it, and it can be remotely wiped. It's a bit like the BlackBerrys, where users can carry out remote deletion."

He added that the unit takes precautions to guard against the feature being exploited. "Because we isolate the devices immediately, and never reconnect them to their network, the remote wiping capability does not present us with much of a problem," he noted.

The 21-strong unit, which sniffs out incriminating evidence from crime scenes, uses a number of high-tech tools to get the sensitive data the police needs to build a case. Advanced forensics tools such as the Logicube CellDEK allow the forensics organization to pull data from more than 1,100 of the most popular mobile phones and PDAs, while its team members carry suitcases containing handset connectors of every shape and size to help collect data from the devices.

However, Foggon warned that the shift away from PCs toward mobile devices is posing an increasing headache for the digital forensics teams.

He said: "It is a concern that society is moving more toward using mobile phones. The PC architecture is usually stable, but with mobile devices they change daily. If a mobile device comes out tomorrow we will not be able to look at it until a tool becomes available.

"We can still analyze it by photographing every screen on it but we won't be able to get hidden data on it, so photographing every screen is not a very practical way of doing it.

"That is an area where we are almost playing catch-up."

Another growing obstacle to forensics' teams ability to recover evidence is the encryption features found in modern operating systems.

"With Windows Vista you have BitLocker that will cause us some problems," Foggon noted.

"It ties in the encryption to a chip. There are ways around it, but it is something we can't crack. We need a pass to get around that."

The team cracks low-grade encryption using 100 quad-core PCs, but for high-grade encryption it relies on the threat of a prison sentence for individuals refusing to hand over passwords or decrypted files.

Foggon believes that the unit's years of experience in unearthing evidence from everything from 186s to MacBooks will mean it will have a key role to play in any central U.K. e-crime policing unit.

The government has committed itself to funding such a unit and indicated it could be part of the proposed National Fraud Reporting Centre, under the Attorney General's Office, while the Metropolitan Police Service and the Association of Police Officers has put forward proposals to the government to establish a policing central e-crime unit.

Foggon said the unit's structure could soon be transformed and it may even tackle a wider range of criminal investigations, following the publication of its reaction, due imminently, to a review of the Serious Fraud Office carried out by former senior New York City prosecutor Jessica de Grazia.

The review called for clarity about the roles, responsibilities, and qualifications of case controllers and assistant directors within the SFO.

Nick Heath of Silicon.com reported from London.

Cablevision on Thursday said it has completed the first phase of its Wi-Fi network in New York and that it still plans to complete the network within two years.

The first phase of the network deployment was in parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties, including commuter rail platforms and station parking lots.

The cable company, which serves parts of New York City and its suburbs, announced its Wi-Fi offering in May. It plans to offer the service, which will provide 1.5-megabit-per-second download speeds, to its 2.4 million high-speed Internet customers at no additional charge.

The company currently doesn't have plans to offer the service to nonsubscribers.

Cablevision predicts that the project, which uses standard Wi-Fi equipment, will cost about $310 million.

Cablevision sees the new Wi-Fi network as a way to enhance its existing broadband business and to provide customers an added incentive to purchase its bundle of high-speed Internet access along with phone service and TV programming. But it also adds wireless and mobility capabilities to the company at a time when other cable companies are forming their own wireless strategies.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks are joining chipmaker Intel, Google, Clearwire, and Sprint Nextel to build a nationwide broadband wireless network using a technology called WiMax.

Meanwhile, Cablevision's phone company rivals, such as Verizon Wireless, are also integrating wireless Internet connectivity into their service bundles in an effort to compete.

Samsung Electronics has agreed to sell its investment stake in Symbian to mobile phone maker Nokia, according to a Reuters report.

In June, Nokia announced plans to acquire the remaining stake in smartphone software developer Symbian that it didn't already own. Nokia, by having full ownership of Symbian, wants to beat back the competition from Apple's iPhone and other competitors by accelerating its product development and serve as an open-source operating system platform for other handset makers, wireless carriers, and software developers.

Nokia, according to the Reuters report on Tuesday, will pay $410 million for its Symbian stake.

AT&T on Wednesday said that it has fixed a problem that caused many iPhone users in the Northeastern U.S. to complain that they couldn't access the mobile Web.

The company told newswire Reuters that the problem, which caused some users to not be able to surf the Web on their phones, was fixed just before noon on Wednesday. The problem did not affect phone calls, text messages or mobile e-mail from devices such as Research In Motion's BlackBerry.

A company spokesman told the news service that it was a "routing issue" that affected how data is delivered to and sent from devices. The spokesman declined to provide more details about the cause of the service issues.

AT&T subscribers in the Midwest and Southeast experienced similar problems accessing 3G (third-generation) and EDGE data services on AT&T's network in January. And there were reports in July 2007 of trouble accessing 3G and EDGE data services.

Since the iPhone 3G was launched in July some subscribers have complained of poor reception. At first, neither Apple nor AT&T would admit to any problems. But after persistent complaints on blogs around the world, Apple finally relented and released a software update for the iPhone 3G that was supposed to fix the problems.

While it's difficult to pinpoint the precise cause of these issues, many industry experts have hypothesized that it's likely a combination of the iPhone's hardware and software and how it interacts with the various 3G networks it operates on throughout the world.

AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S. And although it boasts that it has the fastest 3G network in the nation, its coverage footprint is not as extensive as that of competitors such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. This means that 3G phones such as the iPhone 3G likely switch between the 3G HSPA network and the 2.5 EDGE network more frequently than on some other 3G networks. And problems are more likely to occur during these handoffs, industry experts say.

Verizon Communications said Wednesday that it's extending its agreement with Yahoo to provide Verizon Internet users with Yahoo's Web portal.

The companies' multiyear agreement replaces a similar arrangement the companies had in place since 2005. Verizon didn't offer details about the duration or financial terms of the new deal. But it did say Yahoo's portal will be the first choice offered to subscribers of its DSL and Fios high-speed Internet service. Verizon will also offer its own branded portal and the MSN portal from Microsoft.

The deal between Verizon and Yahoo appears to only cover Verizon's wired broadband services. The companies made no mention of a deal that included services for Verizon Wireless, which is jointly owned by European carrier Vodafone and Verizon Communications. Recent news articles have reported that Verizon Wireless is close to striking a deal with Google on mobile search and advertising. Yahoo also offers mobile search and advertising products that Verizon Wireless could use as well. AT&T, which has a similar broadband portal arrangement with Yahoo that Verizon has, also has chosen Yahoo as one of its mobile partners.

Verizon Wireless hasn't yet announced any kind of arrangement with Google, so it will be interesting to see if Yahoo can parlay its broadband deal into anything for mobile. Yahoo has a strong portfolio in mobile and it has done well so far in the mobile market. Like Google, it has adapted some of its traditional Web services, like search, for the mobile market.

Earlier this year, Yahoo redesigned its mobile home page and announced Yahoo Go 3.0, an open platform for widgets created by outsiders. It's also been rolling out new partnerships for mobile advertising. In addition to providing search and display advertising for AT&T, Yahoo has also won big deals with other carriers such as Vodafone and T-Mobile in Europe and Rogers in Canada.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin speaks at the Chrome browser launch event.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's new Chrome browser is for PCs today, but company co-founder Sergey Brin expects the technology will make its way to Android, the company's mobile phone operating system and software suite.

Chrome and Android were developed largely separately, Brin said in an interview at the Chrome launch event Tuesday. "We have not wanted to bind one's hands to the other's," Brin said. But you can expect that to change now that both projects are public and nearing their first final releases.

"Probably a subsequent version of Android is going to pick up a lot of the Chrome stack," Brin said, pointing to JavaScript improvements as one area.

And the brand name likely will follow. "My guess is we'll have 'Chrome-like' or something similar," he said.

Chrome and Android's current browser both already employ WebKit, an open-source project for the process of interpreting the HTML code that makes up a Web page and rendering it on a screen.

Click here for full coverage of the Google Chrome launch.

(Credit: Crave UK)

Nokia launched a new music service Tuesday in the U.K. that bundles free access to music with the purchase of a phone.

The new service called "Comes with Music" offers users of certain Nokia phones a year's subscription to the company's music service. The program will initially be offered through Carphone Warehouse in the U.K., but Nokia has plans to eventually roll it out globally.

Nokia first announced the Comes With Music service last year. The service essentially bundles access to digital music with the purchase of a new handset. The first phone to use the service is the 5310 XpressMusic device. With the free one-year subscription to the service, Nokia users can download as many songs as they want and keep the songs even after the subscription expires.

This is a clear differentiator from other music stores and services. Apple's iTunes requires users pay for individual songs or albums. Verizon Wireless and Real have launched the new Rhapsody music store for mobile phones. It also allows subscribers to download and listen to as much music as they like for $15 a month. But once users stop paying the subscription fee, access to the music disappears.