Business on the move

Even the commute into work has become an extension of the eight to six. That solitary time for composing yourself before a busy day in the city (and winding down afterwards) is now a multimedia extravaganza. You’re hooked up to the net, scheduling meetings on your BlackBerry, reading reports, speaking to India using a VoIP connection, checking budgets, overseeing your new IT infrastructure on the office intranet whilst being hooked up to a drip of latte and essential amino acids, eliminating the messy and time-consuming need to eat or drink. The ultra-efficient cyborg worker has emerged through use of technology; whether you like it or not, you need never take a day off again.

The life of wi-fi
Recent figures show 60 percent of companies have WLAN capabilities in their offices. But we’re not just going wireless at work; UK broadband penetration has already reached 50 percent of homes, with most new sign-ups demanding wi-fi rather than fixed-line. From these humble beginnings wi-fi reaches deep into the public spaces of our everyday lives: today, most hotels provide free wi-fi as a matter of course, as do coffee houses, libraries, fast-food restaurants, telephone booths, and airports.

What’s the next step? Large-scale, blanket public-access wi-fi networks, of course. They have mutated into the necessary evil of a culture driven by the needs of mobile professionals, who demand access to their data at all times, and fast. Users are now accustomed to the freedom and mobility offered by wi-fi, hi-speed wireless internet access is expected in all the environments they work and play.

The ease with which establishments can install wi-fi networks – as well as the low cost barrier – has increased their adoption in areas frequented by business travelers. These public access hotspots are springing up rapidly, meeting the demands of users who demand ease of accessibility and ubiquitous connectivity when they travel away from home or office.

Of course, many of these places frequented by business travelers have some crossover with spaces frequented by the general public. So as well as having a significant effect on the work-life balance of your average C-level executive, the rapid expansion of wi-fi has also had an effect on our public spaces and our public (and private) life. In the UK – a country already dubbed “CCTV Nation” due to the high concentration of cameras watching every move in urban areas – are residents prepared for the implications of being tracked, wirelessly, 24/7, wherever they go, whatever they look at?

The vast majority of these spots throughout the world use 802.11b equipment, and they provide high-speed wireless internet access through a variety of providers, including WISPs, traditional service providers, telecoms, mobile operators and aggregators on a fee-paid or “free” basis (free while you watch a certain number of adverts while you’re connected). Blanket wi-fi may have critics – who point to security, complexity and cost issues – but regardless, the networks are tightening their hold on our cities. The free metropolitan wi-fi network launched along the Thames in London continues the gradual trend towards free public wireless access in Europe and the US. Soon enough, we’ll all be connected: all of the time.

London calling … on the wireless
Free wi-fi access is being offered to businesses and the public along a 22km stretch of the River Thames. The free network gives users free access if they agree to view a 15 to 30 second advert every 15 minutes (if users don't want to view the adverts, they are charged one of a range of tariffs, from £2.95 per hour to £9.95 per month). Although the founding company free-hotspot.com has implemented around 1500 smaller networks in buildings and open spaces around Europe, the Thames service is by far its biggest network, providing access to millions of Londoners, commuters, tourists and visitors. The service is expected to lead to a boom in sales of internet telephones. Some manufacturers already provide wi-fi phones that instead of connecting to a mobile phone network log on to a wireless hotspot and send calls over the internet.

Labour MP Derek Wyatt, head of the all-party parliamentary internet group said: "Such a large-scale project is an exciting prospect for communications in the UK, allowing people to send emails, make cheap phone calls, surf the internet, do business and even play games online, wherever they are." There are already plans to set up wi-fi zones that would dwarf that of the City: Camden, Islington and Kensington and Chelsea are also in line to be covered in their entirety.

The City of London's wi-fi network launched earlier this year is one of the densest citywide wireless networks in the world. Providing wireless connectivity to the 350,000 who work in the City, the mesh network which – according to provider The Cloud is the most comprehensive in Europe – covers London's Square Mile uses 127 broadband nodes built into street furniture like lampposts and street signs. A mesh network can make connections from one node to another rather than relying on each connecting back to a core network separately. The idea behind the new network is to provide a seamless internet connection across the whole area: covering 95 per cent coverage of the City (a figure due to rise in the next few months).

There are about 2000 conventional internet hotspots around London, covering almost all the major hotels and hundreds of coffee shops. However, they require users to log in every time. Users of the City system will have to log in only once: ultimate ease of use on the move. While the City of London’s network is hailed as a benchmark in metro wi-fi, there are other cities around the world that have also embraced the phenomenon of wireless.

Paris
Paris is currently building a free citywide wi-fi network in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent and mobile operator SFR. The network will be offered to both citizens and visitors to the French capital. France Telecom lost the city's tender to provide the free service, which was then awarded to SFR and Alcatel-Lucent. But France Telecom has filed a court challenge against a plan by the city of Paris to offer free wi-fi access in public places, claiming it illegally competes with its own 2250 revenue-generating wireless internet sites in the city.

Internal squabbles in Paris aside, France has made great strides over the past few years in this area. Just six years ago the country had almost the poorest broadband penetration in the developed world: today it is one of the world’s most wired-up nations. Over one in five people there enjoy a high-speed internet connection. But unlike their European counterparts, 52 percent of French broadband connections are used for VoIP (by comparison, the figure for Germany and the UK stands at just six percent). This is the highest figure in Europe, and possible worldwide. As competition is so fierce among the service providers too, consumers get better value for money than in Germany, the UK or even America where monthly fees are sometimes double for slower connections.

Taipei
Taipei currently has around 4200 mesh nodes which cover 52 square miles - a density of slightly more than 80 nodes per square mile. The wi-fi network boasts over 4000 hot spots, covering around 90 percent of the 2.6 million people in the city.

There are two companies offering access to the city-wide wi-fi network, Q-ware Systems, and the state-run Chunghwa Telecom. A host of other companies also offer wi-fi throughout the city in cafes, coffee and tea shops as well as other locations. The point of Taipei's wi-fi network was to reduce traffic on city roads, according to Mayor Ma Ying-jeou.

The proposed idea was to ensure citizens could access all government data, application forms and other work over the Internet, turning Taipei into a true digital city and reducing the need to drive to government offices. Taipei also hosts Taiwan's national government offices, meaning citizens often use cars or scooters to take care of national government paper work as well.

Although Taipei’s wi-fi launch was promising (and early tests of coverage found it good in outdoor areas) subscribers have been scarce, and fall short of the 200,000 regular users needed to break even.

Mexico City
The most populous city in the western hemisphere with 8.7 million residents is looking into a free blanket wi-fi network. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard wants to connect schools, government offices, and the city's 4000 surveillance cameras: no easy task in a place like Mexico City, which suffers air pollution from its crammed roads, and struggles to supply basic services such as water and electricity. The mayor signed an agreement with China’s ZTE to set up wireless, and there are hopes that the project will get off the ground within months.

What’s in a name?
Wi-FI was originally a brand licensed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe the embedded technology of wireless local area networks (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11 standard. As of 2007, common use of the term Wi-Fi has broadened to describe the generic wireless interface of mobile computing devices, such as laptops in LANs. The term Wi-Fi was chosen as a play on the term "Hi-Fi", and is often thought to be an abbreviation for wireless fidelity, though the Wi-Fi Alliance no longer recognizes such. Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED logo are registered trademarks of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the trade organization that tests and certifies equipment compliance with the 802.11x standards.

Common uses for wi-fi include internet and VoIP phone access, gaming, and network connectivity for consumer electronics such as televisions, DVD players, and digital cameras. In spite of media reports about possible health risks from wi-fi, scientific studies have failed to show a causal effect.

FAST FIGURES
ABI Research predicts there will be 179,000 wi-fi hotspots worldwide this year, with the hospitality industry leading the way in providing access.

Forrester Research cautions that public WLAN hotspot business will plateau at about 7.7 million users by 2008.

Watch your health
Although there are health concerns about radiation created by wireless emitters, there is at this present time no definitive evidence either for or against.

Wi-fi pollution
Wi-fi pollution, or an excessive number of access points in the area, especially on the same or neighboring channel, can prevent access and interfere with the use of other access points by others, caused by overlapping channels in the 802.11g/b spectrum, as well as with decreased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between access points. This can be a problem in high-density areas, such as large apartment complexes or office buildings with many wi-fi access points. Additionally, other devices use the 2.4 GHz band: microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors, security cameras, and Bluetooth devices can cause significant additional interference.

The world’s largest security breach ever – care of the company’s wireless
Many individuals and businesses are apparently not securing their wireless networks, leading to a serious security threat and several high profile hacks. This includes the TJX breach where – as if you need reminding – more than 45 million customer records were stolen using wi-fi as the attack vector.

To be exact, 45.7 million accounts were compromised over a period of almost two years, making the scope of the breach far wider than previously believed. Gartner said it was the largest security breach ever worldwide.

TJX (which operates TK Maxx in the UK and Marshalls and TJ Maxx in the US) released additional details of the breach in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. TJX noted cyber thieves first accessed its computer systems in July 2005 and installed software to harvest such sensitive customer information as account information, names and addresses, drivers' licence numbers and military and state identification. The breach continued until mid-January 2007.

Accounts and transactions affected included credit and debit card transactions, as well as checks and returned merchandise without receipts.

In the case of TJX it is suspected that attackers gained access through a wireless regional hub for the company's store controllers that handle the point-of-sale system. From there, they may have been able to work their way into TJX's central system.