US Starbucks Giving Out Free WiFi
Starting on July 14, Starbucks in the US will be offering free Wifi to customers having their coffee at the store. You will have to sign in to the Starbucks Digital Network to gain access. The company is trying to increase market share by enhancing the experience and creating content so compelling that it drives incremental traffic.
UK Will Ban Public WiFi Hotspots
The UK government will outlaw open Wi-Fi hotspots using its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown. The affected areas are Universities, MacDonalds, small businesses and even libraries.
Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law at Sheffield University said, This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in. Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small café.
Source: Open Wi-Fi ‘outlawed’ in Digital Economy Bill
WiFi Roaming 802.11r Approved
IEEE has approved 802.11r (Fast Basic Service Set Transition) WiFi standard where devices can now roam between two access points quickly. This will improve performance of VoIP. Instead of 100ms from one access point to the next, WiFi roaming can do this in 50ms.
