Dish Network and DirecTV are battling amongst themselves to promote the most HDTV channels, as well as outflank cable competitors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Dish Network is beating DirecTV and cable competitors to the punch, reports Light Reading. They have begun to roll out standard-def and high-def service in the eastern half of the United States using MPEG-4 (see table for a list of the first 21 markets). Dish is supporting the service with MPEG-4 receivers, including one with an on-board digital video recorder (DVR).

Dish is pushing its recently launched TurboHD service and some 1080p resolution content. Dish expects to offer as many as 150 national HD channels by year’s end, with hopes that it can reverse a second quarter that saw the satellite company lose subscribers for the first time.

Meanwhile, DirecTV began delivering all HD programming in MPEG-4 last month, a spokesman said. But, because it would require massive set-top switch-outs, DirecTV doesn’t have any announced plans to offer Standard Definition in MPEG-4. DirecTV says it has 130 “national” HD channels up, and will have the capacity for 200 when the DirecTV 12 satellite is available next year. DirecTV also expects to offer some movies in 1080p, later this year.

There’s an excellent chance you can get HDTV signals through your current cable provider, with more than 100 million U.S. households “passed” by a cable operator that offers HDTV, reports C/Net. All of the top 100 cable markets have been “passed” by a cable company with HDTV programming. That’s the good news. The bad news is that most providers carry only a handful of the 50-odd HDTV networks. Time Warner Cable has agreed to carry the Big Ten Network in standard-def and High-Def in all Big Ten states while Charter says a deal to carry the Big Ten Network is “imminent.”

DirecTV and Dish Network plan to broadcast the existing MPEG-2 HD lineup, but subscribers with older HD equipment will have to upgrade to newer MPEG-4 boxes to watch the new local and national HD channels.

Business Week summarizes a variety of mobile VoIP services that allow you to make phone calls from your cellphone over Wi-Fi networks.

VoIP calling is already raising a ruckus in telecommunications, putting pressure on the price of land-line calling and luring subscribers toward upstarts like Vonage and Comcast away from incumbents such as AT&T, and Verizon. Now, the technology threatens to erode sales for mobile-phone service providers too.

These apps are popular amongst people who use iPhones, notes GigaOM, thanks to services such as Truphone, Gorilla Mobile and iCall.

ON World estimates that in 2011, mobile VoIP voice services may generate $33.7 billion, up from $516 million in 2006, the most recent year for which the figure is available. Jajah, for example, experienced a fivefold increase in just a year and now has more than 10 million users — and growing.

Carriers are not happy VoIP newcomers snapping up almost one-quarter of all wireless minutes now devoted to long-distance and international calls.

It’s not going to get any better. Skype, the eBay-owned service used by more than 338 million people to make free PC-to-PC calls, later this year plans to release a new product called “Skype for your mobile” that will let customers use local wireless minutes to make international calls. It works on almost 50 handsets, but uses cellular data services rather than Wi-Fi.

Wireless carriers are expected to generate $700 billion in sales of voice services this year, according to consulting firm Ovum. Together, international and long distance will make up 24% of the 1.2 billion wireless minutes used this year, estimates Insight Research.

In other news, text messaging in the United States continues to explode, according to new figures from VeriSign. The company said it delivered more than 52 billion messages during the second quarter of 2008, up more than 20% from the previous quarter and saw a daily average of 572 million messages, more than doubling the 230 million per day during the second quarter of 2007.

VeriSign offers Short Message Service delivery engines to more than 600 carriers, reaching more than 2.4 billion wireless subscribers across carrier, enterprise, and media/entertainment networks. SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application on the planet, according to Wikipedia, with 2.4 billion active users, or 74% of all mobile phone subscribers sending and receiving text messages on their phones.

Carol Wilson of Telephony Magazine has an in-depth review of municipal broadband in the United States. She says that despite some high-profile failures, the deep-seated need for broadband is keeping municipalities on the fiber-to-the-home-track.

These projects are being fueled by the falling cost of Fiber To The Home (FTTH) technology and the growing experience in deploying systems, due in no small part to the massive effort Verizon has launched.

It is supremely ironic that one of the nation’s more visible and contentious muni fiber projects, involving the city-owned Lafayette Utilities System in Lafayette, La., is now reaping the benefits of delays to its FTTH construction caused by lawsuits and legal actions launched by incumbent cable and telco operators.

Among the examples she mentions:

• Networks such as iProvo and Utopia found it hard to attract service providers, and without services, customers just weren’t interested. A Utah state law now prohibits municipally owned networks from selling retail services.

  “What happened in Utah is something we have been talking about for years — the state law that effectively prohibits retail service is, in my view, a very substantial part of what is wrong with the environment in Utah and particularly iProvo,” said Jim Baller, attorney with Baller & Herbst, which represents municipalities and has done research for e-NC Alliance, among others. “If applications are slow to evolve — and they have been — service providers are left competing with incumbents on traditional services, where they have no advantages.”

• North Carolina’s e-NC Authority is seeking ways to stimulate broadband initiatives in rural areas of that state, while Massachusetts just passed a bill to create a Broadband Institute, using $40 million in state funding to bring broadband to western areas of the state still served only by dial-up.
• In Washington state, the Grant County Public Utilities Department, another FTTH pioneer, still is operating a wholesale-only network in accordance with state law there, although it came under criticism and went through a management change over the $400 million price tag of that network.

  Partially in response to that criticism, the Grant County PUD halted its network expansion in 2004, after four years of construction had connected about 11,000 homes — or one-third of the anticipated homes — said Sarah Morford, spokeswoman for PUD. After extensive review and exploration of other technology options, the Grant County PUD commissioners voted in March to press forward, citing public support for its fiber network. Over the next five years, Grant County plans to expand the network to reach 80% of residents and 95% of businesses, or about 3000 homes and business per year.

• In Chattanooga, Tenn., for instance, the municipally owned utility EPB, is economically justifying its fiber build on the basis of creating a “smart grid” that will enable the company to reduce energy consumption and lower the cost of power it buys from the Tennessee Valley Authority. The plan is to reach 80% of the 167,000 homes in the 600-square-mile service area in the first three years and then reach more rural homes in the last two years of the five-year buildout.
• Glasgow Electric of Glasgow, Ky., which built the nation’s first municipally owned broadband network, is now publicly arguing that instead of spending $18 billion to build nuclear power generators to meet future electric demand, the TVA should build FTTH networks to 9 million homes at $2000 each and use those connections to manage in-home electrical use.
• According to Joe Savage, president of the Fiber to the Home Council, there are 14 states where laws either prohibit or limit muni networks. A national Community Broadband Act failed in 2007 at the federal level, but U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced similar provisions as part of a 2008 bill that also seeks to unlock cell phones from specific mobile networks.

As more cities get more experience and that experience is shared, municipal networks will become more common in the U.S., as they already are in Europe, reports Telephony Magazine.

Tim Wu compared U.S. broadband providers to OPEC in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, a charge the CTIA thinks is ridiculous.

Private providers, like Integra Telecom, provide voice, data and Internet communications to thousands of business and carrier customers in 11 Western states. The company owns and operates fiber-optic networks comprising metropolitan access networks, a nationally acclaimed tier one Internet and data network, and a 4,700-mile high-speed long haul network (right).

Related Dailywireless Fiber articles include; FiOS: Too Risky?, Municipal Fiber: Fits and Starts and Be Your Own Fiber Net.

Eye-Fi’s SD memory cards come with built-in WiFi, allowing ordinary cameras to transmit photos over nearby WiFi hotspots. But WiFi drains the battery, so the ability to turn the wireless feature on and off is a much desired feature.

Today Eye-Fi announced they have collaborated Nikon to deliver enhanced integration of the Eye-Fi wireless memory card with the new Nikon D90 DSLR. The Nikon D90 detects when an Eye-Fi card is inserted and manages its power settings to ensure that photos upload for sharing and storing.

In addition, the Nikon D90 includes an Eye-Fi menu that allows users to turn the wireless function on or off. “This is a great example of how a non-wireless camera can be optimized for the Eye-Fi card to create the best experience possible,” said Yuval Koren, chief product officer and co-founder of Eye-Fi.

Through the end of this year, existing SmugMug members can automatically upgrade their Eye-Fi Share or Eye-Fi Card to include one year of free geotagging and hotspot access at more than 10,000 Wayport hotspots.

Eye-Fi products include the Eye-Fi Home ($79), Eye-Fi Share ($99), and Eye-Fi Explore cards ($129).

C/Net’s Crave compares the specs:

  Nikon D80 Nikon D90 Canon 40D Sensor 10.2-megapixel CMOS 12.3-megapixel CMOS 10.1-megapixel CMOS A/D conversion 12-bit 12-bit 14-bit Sensitivity range ISO 100 - ISO 3200 (Hi1) ISO 100 - ISO 6400 (Hi1) ISO 100 - ISO 3200 (expanded) Focal-length multiplier 1.5x 1.5x 1.6x Continuous shooting 3 fps

23 JPEG/6 raw 4.5 fps

n/a 6.5fps
75 JPEG/17 raw Viewfinder 95% coverage

0.94x magnification
fixed focusing screen 96% coverage
0.94x magnification
fixed focusing screen 95% coverage
0.95x magnification
interchangeable focusing screens Autofocus 11-pt AF

Single center cross-type 11-pt AF

n/a 9-pt AF
all cross-type to f/5.6 Live View No Yes Yes LCD size 2.5 inches 3 inches 3 inches Shutter durability < 100,000 cycles 100,000 cycles 100,000 cycles Price (body only) $799.95 $995 $1,099

Below is a promotional viral video, produced by a professional photographer out of Seattle.

But without auto-focus enabled in the video mode and with a 5 minute max video record time, the camera has limitations. Sony and Canon will, no doubt, have their own competition. Sony’s on-chip VR, for example, might be handy for reducing vibration on prime f1.4 lenses like a 50 or 85mm.

DP Review has a detailed preview of the new Nikon D-90 which features 12 Megapixels, HD video recording and GPS input. It costs $999 (body only) or $1299 (with 18-105MM F/3.5-5.6 VR lens)

Phones with Android let users more easily download software from third party developers. But an Android App Store, featuring “open access” software, could steal the revenue from traditional carriers, explains Market Watch

While the T-Mobile Android phone (and T-Mobile’s app store), is currently the hot topic. T-Mobile will use their new spectrum in the AWS band (1.7GHz/2.1 GHz).

But the upcoming 700 Mhz band, and perhaps more importantly Clearwire’s Mobile WiMAX service (using 2.5-2.7GHz) could spell real trouble for the cell companies. It may be the real reason why Verizon and AT&T are trying to kill the $3.4 billion WiMAX joint venture between Sprint, Clearwire, Google, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, speculates Market Watch:

AT&T, the country’s largest wireless carrier in terms of subscribers, says that Sprint and Clearwire haven’t honestly accounted for the amount of spectrum New Clearwire will be able to use to transmit Internet and voice signals.

New Clearwire says it will become home to a broad range of devices, including those running Android. While other operators also have committed publicly about embracing a wider number of devices, they have a history of limiting access to their networks.

Google product manager Larry Alder wrote on a company Web site in May that “Clearwire intends to build and maintain a network that will embrace important openness features,” adding that “the new network will provide wireless consumers with real choices for the software applications, content and handsets that they desire.”

Analysts say AT&T’s bid stands little chance of scuttling the asset merger, but they warn that it could delay New Clearwire’s launch or result in a paring of its spectrum assets.

Clearwire expects to launch the new network in Portland, Ore., before the end of the year, Clearwire’s Johnston said. “But that’s contingent on the timely close of the Sprint [merger] and if we choose to secure interim financing,” the spokeswoman commented.

Meanwhile, USTelematics who supplies connected-car technology, announced an agreement today with American Wireless, one of the largest wireless agents in the U.S., to provide WiMax service in automobiles equipped with USTelematics’ Voyager Mobile IPTV.

Howard Leventhal, CEO of USTelematics said, “Empowering live real broadband TV in the car is a unique capability of WiMax. We expect that our agreement with American Wireless to provide Clearwire service within Voyager will accelerate deployment of WiMax nationwide.”

When the FCC approved the merger of Sirius and XM satellite radio this summer, it ducked the Ibiquity mandate question, explains Ars Technica. Ibiquity, otherwise known as HD Radio, is used by terrestrial broadcasters. A mandate to include terrestrial digital radio tuners would help promote local broadcasters (at the expense of satellite broadcasters).

The FCC promised to launch a Notice of Inquiry instead. NOI’s differ from Notice of Proposed Rulemakings in that the FCC does not look for feedback on specific rules it would like to enact, explains Ars Technica. The agency just asks the public for information and advice. This week the FCC launched their Notice of Inquiry.

Among the NOI’s questions: How many multi-functional receivers already exist on the market? How many already feature two or more of the following: SDARS, HD Radio, iPod/MP3, and Internet capability? The agency also wants to assess the extent of consumer demand for Ibiquity, especially the demand for HD Radio in automobile radio receivers. The sixty-day comment cycle will begin after the FCC publishes its NOI in the Federal Register.

The FCC required Sirius-XM to agree to an open device requirement for all new receivers, in which manufacturers may add any device plug-in of their choice to new satellite radio tuners.

Nokia today announced the Nokia N96, for 3G HSDPA networks used by AT&T. Available in the fourth quarter of 2008, the Nokia N96 combines a large 2.8 inch screen, 16 gigabytes of internal memory and compatibility with a wide range of video formats, including those using Windows Media. Users can also download video content on their PCs and sideload them to their devices.

Nokia claims the internal 16 gigabytes of memory, and expandable memory card slot, allows up to 40 hours of video content to be stored on the Nokia N96 (based on H.264, 750-Kbps video at 320-by-240 resolution). Other features include a five megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, integrated Wi-Fi support and assisted-GPS navigation.

Through the integration of Ovi services, consumers can have one-click uploading of images, videos and other content using the Share on Ovi service, easy navigation across town and country with Nokia Maps 2.0 or a spur of the moment N-Gage games tournament with friends around the world using the preinstalled N-Gage application.

Included with the Nokia N96 are three months of navigation service for Nokia Maps 2.0, which enables the Nokia N96 to deliver detailed turn-by-turn diections for both automotive and pedestrian navigation. A voucher to purchase a full version of the exciting N-Gage racing title Asphalt 3: Street Rules is also included with the Nokia N96.

The Nokia N96 with Americas 3G support is expected to be available during the fourth quarter of 2008 for an estimated price of USD $800-$895.

Adobe is releasing a Photoshop-like application for Windows Mobile. Of course, it’s not real Photoshop, but the mobile app will work with Adobe’s existing Web-based image editing and storage service, Photoshop Express which is being rebranded as Photoshop.com.

The Windows Mobile app won’t have image-editing features, but it will let you organize and easily upload your camera phone creations to Photoshop.com for sharing and editing.

At launch, the Photoshop.com Windows Mobile app will be available only for the Motorola Q9 Music and Q9 Global; Samsung’s Blackjack I and II; and several members of the Treo 700 series. However, Adobe says you’ll be able to use Shozu to move images to Photoshop.com from an iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola Razr, Nokia 5310, and Nokia 6301.

A basic version of Photoshop.com with 5GB storage will remain free, regardless of whether you buy Elements or Premiere. Adobe will offer the option of upgrading to Photoshop.com Plus, with 20GB of storage, for $50 a year.

Adobe also today announced Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7 software. Photoshop Elements 7 adds a Smart Brush tool as well as a handy Scene Cleaner that has been added to the Photomerge tool. Premiere 7 intelligently analyzes movie clips (including those in the newly-supported AVCHD format) for quality, number of faces, sound and more. It then applies Smart Tags so users can quickly find the best clips in seconds.

Photoshop.com, adds new on-line features to the desktop apps, but it’s not due to launch in October.

Androidguys.com has what they say is an engineering drawing of T-Mobile G-1 Android phone. The screen slides to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. By using the FCC dimensions and doing a little measurement it looks like the phone’s body is around 0.64-inches (16.35mm) deep which makes it fatter than the iPhone’s 12.3mm, but thinner than the HTC Touch Pro’s 18.1mm.

The screen is approx 3.5-inch. Android Community, Tech Crunch and Engadget have more.

Andy Abramson of VoIP Watch has figured out how to make voice calls using the data-only Aircell service on American Airlines. They tried Flash Audio (which isn’t blocked).

And guess what? It worked.

Phweet. Yup, the unfunded brainchild of pals Stuart Henshall and Mr. Blog David Beckemeyer (who I consider one of the true great minds in VoIP) made it happen.

I invited Joanna, she replied and once I figured out how to get Phweet to answer (I had to use Safari, not Firefox) Joanna and I were having a lovely conversation while she was on an Aircell flight. I don’t mean a five second hi, hello. I mean, a real conversation, as she held her Lenovo UMPC up to her face. I even heard the announcement from the flight attendants as she was about to land.

Here’s the logic. Flash audio is embedded inside Flash. Unless Aircell wants to block all Flash traffic, this is the way to talk.

After more than a year of careful planning to accommodate the Democratic National Convention at Denver’s Pepsi Center, Qwest Communications found itself scrambling at the last minute to also wire up Invesco Field at Mile High, when Barack Obama’s campaign decided he would make his acceptance speech there, reports Telephony Magazine.

Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, is not already a Qwest customer, and Qwest is facing considerable complications getting fiber optic connections in place to accommodate the anticipated media coverage.

While the two sites are only about a half-mile apart on the outskirts of Denver’s downtown business district, they are separated by a major freight rail line, a major interstate highway and the South Platt River, said Chuck Ward, president of Qwest’s Colorado operations.

But Qwest is not providing wireless service to the DNC. Wireless networks were deemed not secure and robust enough. “The DNC are viewing this much the same way as we are – as a very sophisticated enterprise level network they are running for this convention“, said Ward. They did not want to put any mission-critical type applications in the wireless environment.

There is too much risk of interference when you think about 20,000 people, most of which will have wireless phones. Much of the communications between cameras also is done on RF devices. The chance for interference inside Pepsi Center is pretty high, which is why the DNC chose not to put anything mission-critical on wireless networks, and we agreed with that.”

The four-week window left no time to bury fiber to Invesco, Ward said, and the company has only four days to work inside the site. “To the extent we had open conduit, we could blow some fiber in,” he said. “But Invesco is still a live venue – the Broncos play there Saturday [Aug. 23], and we get to come in after they leave the field, on Sunday morning. That gives us four days to construct all the inside infrastructure.”

Qwest will have to lay some fiber on the ground and then go to great lengths to protect it from vehicle and foot traffic, Ward said. “We are working carefully with the Invesco folks to provide the security this requires,” he said.

By contrast, plans for wiring the Pepsi Center began 18 months ago, and included what Ward calls “fiber to the parking lot.”

Broadband wireless is available in Denver via Nth Air, which is launching a WiMAX service in Denver over a 3.65 GHz network.

Verizon Wireless expects to handle 5 million more calls and data transmissions than normal during the August 25-28 Democratic National Convention in Denver while Sprint will deploy an Emergency Response Team (ERT) using a Satellite Cellsite on Light Truck (SATCOLT) to stand by in case of unforeseen problems. Google will help set up a two-story, 8,000 square-foot headquarters for hundreds of bloggers.

Official Providers of communications services at the DNC includes Vertigo Software, the Official Microsoft Silverlight Application Development Services Provider for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Vertigo has designed the interface for delivering live, gavel-to-gavel, high-definition (HD)-quality video through the official Convention Web site, DemConvention.com.

See also; Denver Gets Fixed WiMAX and Bloggers Get HQ at Political Conventions

In 1995, when the media rights to the Beijing Games were awarded, NBC could not have imagined millions of live video streams of sporting events, but the company ensured it would own all video rights to the events, protecting its content no matter what technologies emerged.

NBCOlympics.com served up more than 1.2 billion pages and 72 million video streams through Saturday, more than doubling the combined traffic to its site during the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2006 Games in Turin, notes C/Net. NBC’s most popular video from Beijing, with 2.3 million views, was the United States swimming team’s 4×100 relay on August 11 featuring Michael Phelps’ second gold medal win.

The popularity of the site will very likely make digital rights more significant in next year’s bidding for the 2014 and 2016 Games.

On Friday the research firm eMarketer estimated that NBC earned $5.75 million in revenue from online video ads, a tiny proportion of the $1 billion in total advertising revenue it raised from the Games. eMarketer came up with its video ad estimate by multiplying an estimated 4.5 million streams daily by 1.5 ads per stream at a CPM of $50. NBC officials said that Internet advertising revenues could not be estimated because the ads were sold across various platforms.

Traffic to NBCOlympics.com peaked each day around noon as office workers checked in during the lunch hour. Gibs said Nielsen also saw traffic spikes on the last two Monday mornings, presumably as office workers caught up on Olympics action they might have missed over the weekend.

NBC’s decision to save some popular sports for prime time–up to 12 hours after they have happened–put the network at odds with the spirit of the Internet, which rewards speed and rejects scarcity. Americans awakened to breaking news e-mail messages and Web site headlines revealing the results of gymnastics and track and field races, but had to wait until bedtime to see the events on television.

NBC treated the Olympics like a research laboratory, and it says it is gleaning information about how people preferred to consume content from its combination of television, online and mobile offerings.

Last week, eMarketer issued a revised forecast of $550 million for Web video ad spending in 2008, up from $324 million last year. The category is expected to hit $5.8 billion in ad dollars by 2013.

Related 2008 Olympics coverage on Dailywireless includes; Olympics: In Demand, Denver Gets Ready for DNC, WiMAX for TV Remote Feeds, The Olympic Handset, Olympics Has Not Melted The Internet - Yet, Mobile Users Becoming A Force, China Showcases TD-SCDMA at Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics: On Demand

Universities, already early-adopters of earlier flavors of Wi-Fi, are also leading the charge towards 802.11n, especially in North America, says ABI Research.

“Although current penetration of the higher education market is only 2.3%, that still represents a good rate of uptake for such a new, pre-standard technology,” says ABI Research vice president and research director Stan Schatt.

The reasons for this are the same as those prompting higher education’s already rapid adoption of previous Wi-Fi technologies: the need to serve large numbers of users at once, the demands of on-campus security, students’ expectations, and innovative use of video in the curriculum. The latter qualification is especially important in light of 802.11n’s five-fold expansion in bandwidth compared to its predecessors.

“As video becomes an essential part of the academic experience, bandwidth video requirements and newer laptops (which increasingly will have 802.11n built in) mean that a marriage of convenience will occur between students’ needs to view video anywhere on campus and the ability of 802.11n–enabled laptops to handle the bandwidth requirements,” notes Schatt.

Duke University, University of Arizona, Carnegie Mellon University, and many others are seeing significant deployments, conducted by vendors such as Cisco, Aruba, Meru Networks, and Trapeze Networks.

Trapeze recently announced a major deployment at the University of Minnesota, which will cover 22 million square feet of indoor space as well as outdoor space over two adjacent campuses.

Trapeze had a planning tool called Ringmaster that allows the university to use computer-aided design drawings of buildings to immediately begin planning where to locate the APs for maximum coverage in 300 buildings with 1,300 floors, and serving 80,000 students, faculty and staff.

The initial, $3.5 million phase of the Wi-Fi project will cover about 40 percent of the Twin Cities campuses — mostly inside classrooms and libraries. It is expected to take five years and $15 million to light up the two campuses.

The solar-powered Wi-Fi equipment installed in nearby St. Louis Park (above) never worked right. Like that city, the University of Minnesota will be trying to unload its old gear when the replacement of its new Wi-Fi network is complete.

It’s tough to keep up with all the mini-notebooks, notes Gizmodo.

Not to worry. Liliputing has a comprehensive list of Ultraportables, Netbooks and Mini-Notebooks. The database is designed to make it easy to compare current and upcoming models.

The City of Milpitas, California is developing a contract to let Silicon Valley Unwired, a non-profit organization that includes the city of Milpitas, Google, and I-Net Solutions, to provide free municipal Wi-Fi service.

“There would be no fee for the public to use the network,” Bill Marion, Milpitas’ Information Services director, told the council this week. Marion said Milpitas would likely see about 7,000 Wi-Fi users a month for a network that would provide 10 square miles of service coverage. I-Net Solutions would provide technical support.

Milpitas’ new Wi-Fi operation would be similar to service already offered by Google in Mountain View.

In May, EarthLink jettisoned its Wi-Fi systems, which included more than 300 installed Wi-Fi antennas in Milpitas worth nearly $1 million. It remained operational even after the firm departed the city. It was formally transferred to city control.

Since May, City of Milpitas has used the Wi-Fi system for police and fire public safety use as well as continued free public Wi-Fi usage at the city’s community center, sports center, senior center and council chambers, reports state.

New York State should ditch a $2 billion plan for a statewide wireless network for emergency workers, unless the already delayed system can be fixed, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said on Thursday.

“After three rounds of failed testing, it is apparent that this system is not ready to move forward. M/A-COM has not met its contractual obligations and New York can’t afford to spend $2 billion on a system that doesn’t work right,” he said. “M/A-COM has to deliver what it promised,” DiNapoli added.

The state-wide network would enable emergency first responders, such as police and firefighters, to talk to each other. It would use Project 25 radios, an interoperable, 2-way radio standard that allows different voice users to communicate. It also enables slow (9.6 Kbps), data transmission.

The New York State Office for Technology (OFT) is expected to decide whether to accept or reject the first phase of the network build-out in two counties by August 29th. Melodie Mayberry-Stewart (right), has taken over as the director of the Office of Technology and said that the Aug. 29 deadline, for thumbs up or down on the contract, is firm.

M/A-COM doesn’t get a dime if it’s thumbs down. Plus, a $50 million letter of credit filed by M/A-COM with the state may be tapped for what the state has spent already in anticipation.

When the administration of Gov. George E. Pataki awarded the contract in 2005, some lawmakers questioned whether the company was the best choice. M/A-COM was represented by former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, a close ally of the governor. Some of those lawmakers thought that Motorola’s proposal would have been a better choice. A spokesman for Motorola said on Thursday that the company had completed or was working on similar systems in 28 states.

New York’s statewide wireless emergency communications system would not include any construction in the protected wilderness areas of the Adirondacks and Catskills. Tyco International subsidiary, M/A-Com, bid roughly $1 billion for the 20-year contract. They planned to use as few as four towers in the Adirondacks and the Catskills, and none in protected areas.

That was sharply fewer than the bid from Motorola which proposed 400 towers for the project. Motorola’s bid was roughly $3 billion. New York officials said the different approach to building new towers was the major reason for the vast difference in the bids.

In the Tyco proposal, repeaters are an essential element in avoiding the construction of towers. Repeaters are used throughout the country as a standard way of giving greater amplification to the transmissions of hand-held radios.

Tyco Electronics’ M/A-COM business won the contract in 2005, the biggest New York state technology contract ever awarded.

The statewide network was expected to be completed and fully operational by July 2010. M/A-COM said in March it successfully completed coverage testing in the two New York counties that comprise the first region of the network to be built.

But more recent testing, carried out by the state, is more critical. The system is a year and a half behind schedule and has suffered from technology problems, according to Jennifer Freeman a spokeswoman for the comptroller. “It’s very likely this contract is not going to go ahead unless the issues are fixed,” said Freeman. The state will spend $60 million less on the project over the next two years, as the result of a special legislative session that ended this week.

Tyco Electronics said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters that the audit “includes a number of inaccuracies” and said it would “correct any remaining outstanding issues related to the first phase of this program.”

In rural Chautauqua, it worked. But in populated Erie County, with tall buildings and crammed cellphone towers, there were numerous gaps in coverage and the system was deemed not successful. In May, more tests found roughly the same problems, only fewer of them.

Officials from M/A-Com expressed confidence the issues could be addressed, and said problems in Buffalo had been caused by interference from other radio transmissions. The system has been tested in neighboring Chatauqua County, which is mainly rural, and officials there had no complaints, said Victoria Dillon, an M/A-Com spokeswoman.

The gaps were “localized in a few sites, like cell carriers, a TV station in Canada,” Ms. Dillon said. Michael R. Mittleman, the state official overseeing the project for the Office of Technology, agreed.

Comptroller DiNapoli advised New York should go back to the drawing board unless M/A-COM can fix problems.

If M/A-COM fails the final evaluation in Erie and Chautauqua counties, it is uncertain what direction the state could take next. It could seek to still improve the M/A-COM solution, rebid the project that could add further delays or just scrap the whole idea of a statewide wireless network.

The Oregon Telecommunications Coordinating Council (ORTCC) got together with the Oregon State Interoperability Executive Council — as many states have done — to develop a similar $500 million state-wide public service network (which later grew to $650 million). It would be a voice-oriented network, used exclusively by first responders. Federal Engineering, which is advising the New York Network, was awarded Oregon’s contract to create a presentation (Real Video) and review the scope, goals and costs of the Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network project. Like many such projects, the choice came down to two dominant Project 25 providers, Motorola and M/A-Com. A two-slot TDMA doubles system capacity and meets the FCC’s requirement for 6.25 kHz channel equivalency by creating two voice paths within a 12.5 kHz channel with a half rate IMBE vocoder.

Finding the money to build a state-wide, interoperable (and narrow-band) radio network exclusively for first responders, is a problem for virtually every state. The state-wide infrastructure can cost billions, while thousands of Project 25, 2-way voice radios, costing $3,500 each, can cost additional hundreds of millions of dollars — billions in the case of New York. Where is the money coming from?

Nobody seems to know.

Some believe the solution lies in the nationwide, broadband 700 Mhz channels, which the FCC unsuccessfully tried to auction recently. That would provide 20 Mhz of broadband spectrum that could be shared by both public service agencies and ordinary mortals. In the FCC’s plan, the winning bidder would build a nationwide network at no cost to state or federal governments. The FCC will likely try auctioning the frequencies again next year.

Related DailyWireless articles include; NY State’s Wireless Net Broken?, Topoff 4 Begins in Portland, Minneapolis Bridge Collapse & Emergency Communications, New York State’s $1B Wireless Net, State-wide Wireless Broadband Access, Grand Rapids + Clearwire, InterOp Takes a Holiday, Lockheed in $10B Wireless Project, Networx!, Public Service Bands, Oregon Unwired, Statewide Interoperabilty Plan, InterOp Command, The $500M SafetyNet, This is Only A Test, State-wide Wireless Broadband Access, Webcasting Concerts, Big Brother Blimp, Solar Powered WiMAX & WiFi, The OTHER Public Safety Band, The Infinite Zoom, Microsoft’s 3D Photo Flyby, Microsoft’s Amazing Virtual Earth, Microsoft Buys Vexcel, Mapping Goes Live, HDTV from Aircraft, Panoramic Video, Scanners 3D, Vessel Monitoring, Border Surveillence, Gigapixel Imaging, Virtual Earth Adds Cities, Panoramic EventCam, Border Surveillence, Cities As Game Grids, Traffic Radio Goes HD, Earthquake First Responders, What Up at Where 2.0, Road Trip 2.0, Yahoo Mobilizes Globe, Tracking Vehicles: Good to Go, Transportation’s Big Show, Mapping Highway Data, Traffic Mapping, FCC: Nextel Gets PCS Spectrum, Public Service Moves to 800Mhz, Public Safety Shuffle, Decision in Nextel’s Court, Consensus Plan from FCC?, Localizing Consensus Plans, Verizon Jaming Public Service Fix, FCC: Nextel Gets Spectrum Credit, FCC: Nextel Gets PCS Spectrum, Nextel’s Consensus Move, Nextel Accepts Consensus Swap, Freq Consensus?, 700MHZ Goes Live, General Dynamics Wins IWN Contract, McCain Wants Commercial 700 MHz for Police, and FCC: Moving on 700MHZ Public Safety Interop?New York’s $1B Wireless Net, Oregon’s $500 Million Statewide Wireless Network and FCC: Limited Open Access, No Wholesale Requirement for 700 MHz.

Tech Crunch says that the Google’s mobile team has released a Geolocation API for Google Gears.

It works on cell phones and laptops running Gears, but so far Google Gears Mobile still only works on Windows Mobile phones, although an Android phone is about to launch.

Google finds a mobile phone’s location for its own mobile apps, such as Google Maps, and is now opening that technology up as an API to outside developers.

Two UK-based mobile startups, Rummble and LastMinute, have built the API into their services.

The Google Mobile blog shows how these two apps make use of the Gears Geolocation API, which can determine your location using nearby cell-towers or GPS, as well as your laptop’s IP address. Google provides this service for free to both developers and users.

Gears is available on IE Mobile on mobile and Internet Explorer and Firefox on desktop.

To use the location-enabled lastminute.com and Rummble web apps you will need a Windows Mobile device that supports GPS or cell-id lookup (for example the Samsung Blackjack II and HTC Touch Dual, see supported devices FAQ).

There is also more detailed information on the API on the Google Code blog.

According to a report Friday in the Wall Street Journal, Google is reportedly close to a deal with Verizon Wireless for mobile search.

The deal would make Google the default search provider on Verizon devices and give it a share of ad revenue. Verizon wants to create a new search platform that would be a one-stop shop, says the WSJ. Today, users have to go to different places to look up services such as ringtones, restaurants and Web pages.

Apparently the deal isn’t yet final; the two sides are still negotiating on key issues, such as Google’s desire to save information from user cellphone searches. Carriers are reluctant to turn that information over.

Seattle-based startup Medio Systems, which already handles digital-content searches for Verizon, would manage the all-in-one search service.

Google is also developing the Android software platform, designed to be an open and allowing other developers to write applications for it. Carriers such as T-Mobile are participating in that project.

In other news, the Mobile Wall Street Journal launched this week. This application was developed by FreeRange Communications and the user interface was designed by Cloud Four.

Content and advertisements are automatically delivered and stored on the reader’s mobile phone, ready to be easily and efficiently consumed on demand. The application is currently only available for Blackberry users. You can download the application for free.

Early reviews of the application have been positive. The Silicon Valley Insider says that of all of the applications that newspapers have released that “Wall Street Journal’s Mobile Reader is easily our favorite to date.”

The Wall Street Journal selected the FreeRange Communications branded RSS reader while Cloud Four help with the user interface design to make the application feel more like the WSJ.

Nth Air, a wireless ISP, and Fujitsu Network Communications, have launched WiMAX services across Denver which will be available for the 5,000 delegates and 15,000 members of the media expected to attend the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver next week.

The fixed point-to-multipoint network will provide broadband wireless Internet data, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video services for businesses and municipalities. WiMAX point-to-point connectivity is also available to connect users staying at different hotels. Up to 1 Gbps symmetrical, dedicated, scalable services are delivered to support subscriber needs.

“Reporters or city officials and their staff members may simply not have time to head back to their hotels to file stories or transmit important information to each other,” said Craig Niemeyer, chief executive officer and president of Nth Air. “By subscribing to our WiMAX service, they’ll receive high-speed wireless Internet access directly from the convention center with the same kind of connectivity they’d get with their own networks at the office,” added Niemeyer.

The Fujitsu WiMAX solution that Nth Air purchased operates in the “lightly licensed” 3.65 GHz spectrum. Fujitsu delivers fixed and mobile WiMAX equipment and the professional services that support wireless network design, installation and provisioning.

Sprint and Clearwire plan to jointly launch a Mobile WiMax service in Denver in the coming months.

For suburban Denver, a group called the Colorado Wireless Communities planned to build a massive WiFi network that spans 10 cities, 200 square miles and more than 600,000 people in the northwest metro area. But C-Com, the Boulder-based vendor picked to install the system, has not been able to raise enough money to fund the deployment of the network. The project is now on the back burner.

The major wireless carriers - AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile - all have boosted capacity at the major venues including the Pepsi Center, Invesco Field, the Colorado Convention Center and even some downtown hotels.