Free WiFi for Beijing's urban and rural areas by 2011

From Danwei -

Per Beijing Business Today, the Information Technology Office has announced Beijing will have free access to WiFi in all of its districts within three years. WiFi was available during the July Olympics earlier this years, via CECT-CHINACOMM, covering the Second and Third Ring Roads, the CBD, on Financial Street, around Zhongguancun and Wangjing’s Economic and Technological Development Zones. However the signal was not good.

Philadelphia's WiFi in jeopardy

From CNET News -

The fate of Philadephia's Wi-Fi deployment is in limbo after provider EarthLink stopped accepting new customers last week and has supposedly given the city a deadline of this week to come up with a plan to take over the network or sell it to a third party.

EarthLink, which fronted $20 million to build the network and has completed 80% of the build-out, had previously aggressively pushed its municipal Wi-Fi strategy. But after the death of its CEO Garry Betty in early 2007, it had a change of heart. Within months, the company got out of several contracts with cities such as San Francisco and Houston. Early this year it announced it was abandoning the business altogether, and it started negotiating with five cities in which networks had already been built or partially built. The city governments of Corpus Christi, TX and Milpitas, CA decided to take ownership of the networks and run them themselves. But New Orleans, LA did not and will have its network dismantled starting May 18.

Source article here.

Hong Kong MTR To Get WiFi’d Up

Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway through PCCW will start offering WiFi inside the trains themselves around Hong Kong very soon.

The service will first be introduced in station concourses and on platforms this summer, with trains the next step.Connection speed will be 54 megabits per second, fast enough to watch videos on the internet. It will cost HK$20 a day for unlimited access.

Details at Butterboom.

Boingo To Offer Monthly Flat-Rate Service

The New York Times reported on June 24 that Boingo Wireless, one of the biggest aggregators with more than 100K hot spots, is introducing the first worldwide flat-rate plan for Wi-Fi hot spots. For a monthly fee of 29 euros, or USD39, subscribers can use any of the company’s affiliated hot spots for as long as they want. No particular software is needed, though Boingo recommends that clients download GoBoingo, a program that alerts users when they are in range of a Boingo hot spot. Boingo directly runs wireless networks at 13 of the largest North American airports, including the three in the New York area and the two in Chicago. As an aggregator, the company also allows subscribers access to 27,000 hot spots in North America, 23,000 in Asia and 51,000 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa that are owned and operated by companies like Earthlink, BT, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, and Telecom Italia.

Last year the number of hot spots accessible to the public rose 17% in New York, 37% in Paris and 27% in London. Boingo also offers an unlimited monthly flat rate for smartphones and PDAs at USD7.95. Boingo’s competitors already have plans to start their own flat-rate service.

For more info on Boingo's service, go to www.boingo.com.