Wireless Broadband Tips

New Sony Camera Has Wi-Fi and Browser

Sony has introduced the DSC-G3 with a browser: This Wi-Fi enabled camera includes a browser, which Sony assures us makes it easy to gain access to hotspots. The camera includes access until 31-Jan-2012 to a special upload site via AT&T’s hotspot network, the Sony Easy Upload Home Page.

Because if there’s two things that digital photographers want, it’s another photograph/video upload interface to learn and configure, and the ability to type in user names and passwords into a tiny tiny tiny Web browser. Goodness knows, I’ve been waiting for that.

Sony joins the other Wi-Fi enabled camera makers in creating a problem where a solution exists: multiple companies (Boingo and Devicescape leap foremost to mind) have figured out how to uniquely identify devices and enable no-entry logins at hotspots through an external account.

But Sony gave us a browser. Hurrah.

The camera has 4 GB of built-in memory, and uses the increasingly less-standard Memory Stick format for additional storage. The 10-megapixel, 4x optical zoom camera with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens has a 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD, and is available today for $500.

Clearwire Opens Portland Network

Clearwire has finally launched a second city: Portland, Ore., close by to Intel’s headquarters in Beaverton, finally gets WiMax coverage. This is the first network under the Clear brand, the service that’s being deployed by the new Clearwire, a merger of the old Clearwire and the WiMax assets of Sprint Nextel. Over 700 sq mi are covered in the metropolitan region.

It was a poorly kept secret that Intel employees have been using WiMax service in the area for a couple of years, starting at their campus and eventually expanding out as the network was lit up for testing. Portland is an ideal early commercial market, however, because there’s such a mix of old and new infrastructure, as well as suburbs and something like exurbs/rural not far from the city’s boundaries due to an urban growth boundary.

From what I can tell, the impetus to get a city-wide Wi-Fi network (started by MetroFi, but never completed) was because of the uneven ability to get high-speed broadband. Clearwire’s 768 Kbps to 6 Mbps residential service is price from $20 to $40 per month, which might be higher in some cases than comparable cable or DSL–but only if that cable or DSL is available. Business services may be far cheaper than landline offerings, while mobile and fixed bundles are much cheaper than anything the cell and wireline broadband companies can offer together so far.

Portland is served by Qwest, which is way behind in offering fiber-connected services, although it’s finally rolling them out. Some of the suburbs are handled by Verizon, which is offering Fios in some places, its fiber-to-the-home service. (GTE once had parts of Washington and Oregon, and that operation was eventually folded into Verizon.)