Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T

Posted on November 30, 2008

A new version of Easy Wi-Fi specifically for iPhone users with AT&T plans went live in the app store over the holiday weekend. This version is trivial to set up – you just need to enter your 10 digit AT&T iPhone number into the settings page – and simple to use: connect to the Wi-Fi network, launch the app and it will log you in. Much simpler than typing your phone number in each time, waiting for the SMS from AT&T and then clicking the link in that to get connected. In addition to all the AT&T Wi-Fi network locations (like Starbucks), it will also connect you to all the networks that have just click through web pages in our list of supported networks. And we’re working on an option to allow you to unlock this version and add more networks, using our web portal. By the way, if you already have the original, multi-network, version of Easy Wi-Fi, then you don’t need this one: you can simply add the AT&T Wi-Fi (iPhone) plan to your Devicescape account and you will have the same capabilities. Do you run a Wi-Fi network? Would you like a version like this specifically tailored…

Thanksgiving Statistics

Posted on November 26, 2008

It’s Thanksgiving week here in the US, and while I’m a Brit, I’m always happy to celebrate somebody’s holiday with them! So, for those who will be enjoying large meals and catching up with their family over the long weekend, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. And for everybody in our global community, whether you’re on holiday or at work, I thought I’d throw out some statistics about Wi-Fi usage, internet usage and Devicescape usage that I thought were interesting. Mobile Internet I was presenting at a JETRO Houston event last week where one of the many interesting things I learned from my co-presenters was that in the late teen to early twenties age range, more people access the internet through a mobile device than with a computer or laptop. And the next couple of segments in that chart weren’t far behind either. Japan has a great mobile data infrastructure to support this of course, and a lot of public access Wi-Fi networks, all of which help to make mobile access simple. The real surprise for me though was the low number of smartphone users (around 2% of mobile subscribers). I’m sure with the popularity of devices like Apple’s…

Complementary Wi-Fi and Cellular

Posted on November 10, 2008

Last week’s announcement of AT&T buying long term partner Wayport for $275 million cash illustrates the increased strategic role of Wi-Fi for service providers as they push out media-centric services to users.  With today’s robust Smartphone market and increasing consumer data usage, carriers are looking for way to offset huge cellular investments and pushing out longer term 4G deployments like LTE and WiMax.  Wi-Fi can provide excellent coverage indoors and in congested areas as a complement to cellular, at a lower cost of carriage.  Moreover, Wi-Fi provides a high-performance, low cost network connection for many different types of device and applications. Much like the AT&T acquisition is a solid proof point to the co-existence of 3G and Wi-Fi, Devicescape has also experienced increasing consumer and OEM demand for Wi-Fi on handsets.  As more and more service providers embrace Wi-Fi in their strategies, the requirements are flowing down to handset vendors to integrate Wi-Fi and supply devices with both types of radios.  Importantly, the Wi-Fi has to be extremely easy to use and integrate tightly with the operators networks, as well as the traditional Wi-Fi locations of home and office. This is all happening at a great time for Devicescape!  Our…