|
Kinko's Goes Wireless
By Eric Griffith
802.11 Planet, Monday April 14, 2003
This morning T-Mobile and Kinko's both announced an agreement to put T-Mobile Hotspot services in over 1000 Kinko's locations for use by Wi-Fi equipped customers.
T-Mobile spokesperson Bryan Zidar says the ink is still wet on the deal; the Kinko's deployments will not be active until the fourth quarter of this year. Eventually the company hopes to expand it to Kinko's locations around the world.
They hope to build in functionality so customers can print directly from their own laptops to Kinko's facilities.
Kinkos, with its headquarters in Dallas, TX, has over 1,100 "digitally connected locations" which offer not only printing and document services but also Internet access and video conferencing facilities. The company said in announcement that adding Wi-Fi access via T-Mobile will be "a new way for our customers to tap into the power of our network of locations, experts and business services."
While Kinko's users might already enjoy a connection provided by cable modem or DSL connection, the T-Mobile Hotspots will still have a T1 line as backhaul to the Internet, just like previous hotspots from T-Mobile.
"We want a consistent network topology so it's consistent across all locations -- like a Starbucks cup of coffee, [it should be] the same in all locations," says Zidar. "It's...a consistent experience."
T-Mobile, the mobile telecommunications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom (Quote, Company Info) based in Bellvue, WA, operates over 2,300 hotspots in the United States, making it the country's largest hotspot provider. Locations running T-Mobile service include Starbucks Coffee Shops, Borders Books & Music, and select airport and American Airlines Admirals Clubs. The company recently made news when it dropped the price of its hotspot services. The cost is now $29.99 per month with a one year subscription, or $39.99 per month with no commitment. The pay-as-you-go rate is $.10 per minute with a one hour (or $6 minimum). T-Mobile is also creating a new software client with Boingo that will integrate Wi-Fi and GPRS cellular connections for laptops.
T-Mobile will be adding hotspot services at clubs for Delta and United over the coming year. The company expects to have a total of 5000 hotspots by the end of 2003.
|
|
Sprint readies CDMA Pocket PCs for Q2
By Jørgen Sundgot
Info Sync World, Monday 17th March 2003
Samsung and Hitachi's new CDMA Pocket PC Phone Edition devices - both with integrated digital cameras - will be available from Sprint some time in the second quarter.
Sprint and Microsoft today announced plans to offer two new CDMA Pocket PC Phone Edition devices on Sprint's PCS Vision network, yet again testifying to Microsoft's intense efforts to have carriers adopt its platforms. The Samsung SPH-i700 and Hitachi Multimedia Communicator - also known as the Hitachi G1000 - both sport integrated digital cameras and will be made available by Sprint some time during the second quarter.
The two new devices are likely to replace Sprint's current offering in the Pocket PC department for its PCS Vision network, represented by the Toshiba PS2032. Based on Toshiba's long-ceased e570 model, the technology powering the PS2032 has become somewhat obsolete, hinting that sales of this model will be ceased once the SPH-i700 and G1000 are available.
 Both the Samsung SPH-i700 and the Hitachi G1000 offer powerful internal specifications that outperform the GSM/GPRS alternatives currently available on the U.S. market, including the T-Mobile MDA and the Siemens SX56 models. Most notably, both devices also offer integrated digital cameras capable of taking pictures in up to VGA resolution, while the Hitachi G1000 also uniquely offers an integrated thumbboard - the first ever for a conventional Pocket PC device.
Courtesy of their embedded, rotating digital cameras, both devices will allow users to send digital images through the Sprint PCS Vision service called Pictures. PCS Vision customers can also upload and store their images on the Sprint Pictures web site.
Both the Samsung SPH-i700 and Hitachi G1000 will come with the Premium edition of Microsoft's Phone Edition platform, offering a full host of Pocket PC 2002 applications including Pocket Excel, Pocket Word, the full Pocket Outlook suite, Pocket Internet, Explorer, Windows Media Player, MSN Messenger and more.
Additionally, users of both devices will be able to download Sprint's PCS Business Connection Personal Edition software during installation. This solution provides real-time wireless access to e-mail and PIM information for Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Dominos servers for $5.00 USD per month.
Enterprise customers will also be provided with an alternative through Sprint's PCS Business Connection Enterprise Edition. Among other features, this solution includes a Pocket PC client which will push e-mail directly to the device at optional scheduled intervals, allowing remote offline access to company e-mail regardless of whether the customer is within coverage of the Sprint PCS Vision network.
|
|
Starbucks gives update on wireless rollout
By John Cox
Network World Fusion, 03/20/03
Starbucks' rollout of public access wireless LAN hotspots in its coffee shops is paying off, according to a company executive speaking at this week's CTIA 2003 show in New Orleans.
Wireless LAN, or Wi-Fi, users are staying on average about nine times longer than about 70% of typical customers - 45 minutes compared to five minutes or less. Starbucks considers the broadband connectivity, which is a pay service, a "new line of business," says Ann Saunders, vice president of Starbucks interactive.
How much profit Starbucks expects from this new business was not disclosed.
The coffee shop retailer, with wireless operator T-Mobile and HP (systems integrator for the project), outlined usage statistics and user profiles at a press conference this week. Currently there are 2,100 Wi-Fi locations at Starbucks coffee shops in the U.S., with additional sites going up in Britain and Germany. Each store has a T-1 connection to the carrier's net. By year-end, all 2,600 U.S. stores will have wireless access.
In the six months since the rollout began, Saunders says usage is exceeding Starbucks' expectations. Hotspot user typically arrive during off-peak hours. About 30% of the 22 million people who visit Starbucks shops weekly stay on average about 20 minutes. The Wi-Fi users are staying twice as long. Whether that translates into twice as much coffee consumption is unclear.
Starbucks is leveraging the retail wireless infrastructure for internal business use. Some 600 district managers, each of whom might oversee 10 to 12 retail stores, now have Wi-Fi-equipped laptops, which they carry with them during visits. Saunders says a survey found that these managers spend about 10% of their workweek online, accessing corporate data and applications.
Users are typically professionals, and typically male. Some are frequent, national travelers, but a surprising number are "local mobile professionals" such as real estate agents, who stop in for coffee or meet with customers at the coffee shop and can access Web information and listings without going back to the office. With a new portable, battery-operated printer from HP, they can even print out contracts.
Eighty-two percent of the users log in with laptops. The rest use PDAs, but this is growing quickly, the executives say. Two-thirds of users are equipped with external Wi-Fi adapter cards plugged into their computers. But the number of devices with Wi-Fi built-in is also growing rapidly.
The project is a showcase for T-Mobile USA, the American mobile division of Germany's Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile is one of the few carriers or mobile operators that has aggressively embraced wireless LAN technologies as a service offering alongside its cellular voice and data services. At the moment, the company claims to have 50% of all public wireless LAN hotspots in the U.S. In April, T-Mobile's cellular customers will be able to take advantage of a hotspot add-on program, adding the wireless LAN service to their regular monthly T-Mobile bill.
To further spur interest in its hotspot service, T-Mobile this week announced a new pricing option in addition to the $30 monthly flat rate. It will soon launch a "day pass" where for a given fee a user can access any T-Mobile hotspot at any location for 24 hours.
|
