Mobile Carriers' Walled Garden Under Siege


This little beauty ties a 3G modem (this one is running on the Verizon network) to a WiFi router. Lots of people can share one mobile data connection, all at the same time. Netgear thinks they’re doing a favor for the mobile phone carriers. Oddly enough, they don’t have relationships with any yet.

The Consumer Electronics Association identified four major trends that will drive the consumer electronics in 2009. Two depend on the wireless data industry to make it happen: mobile devices that provide the same user experience as in-home or in-office gizmos, and devices with embedded Internet capability.… More

From CTIA: light at the end of the walled garden

11 September 2008 by Steve Blum
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Spoke with Sean O’Leary, biz dev VP at TapRoot Systems at the CTIA show in San Francisco. They’re launching an application called WalkingHotSpot. If your handset has WiFi capability (and if they support your handset) it will allow you to run your cellular radio and your WiFi radio at the same time, and pass data between the two.

It’s a logical, and potentially disruptive, extension of the mobile phone concept: your broadband connection is tied to your body, not your home or office or car.… More