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Wireless Networking Hardware

Asia Opens Up to WLAN 78

Posted by chrisd from the cooperation-is-good dept.
enough2000 writes "As Unstrung reports: "Five of Asia's biggest carriers have given the public Wireless LAN market a hefty boost by announcing what they modestly claim is the world's first and largest wireless broadband alliance. Korea Telecom, China Netcom Corp. Ltd., Maxis (Malaysia), StarHub (Singapore), and Telstra Corp.(Australia) have agreed to open up their networks to allow wireless LAN users to roam from one country to another. Tests begin in July, although no specific launch date has been set." Full article is here."
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Asia Opens Up to WLAN More

Asia Opens Up to WLAN

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  • Joy! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by electro_mike ( 658829 )
    It is always great to hear about progress like this, even if it isn't in canada. It just means mass production and cheaper costs down the road
  • China, Korea and Telstra have new WiFi link! Now they can spam the rest of world without having to leave the comfort of their armchairs...
    • I'm shocked that this was moderated as funny, it's not. This guy's just being racist. The biggest chunk of spam I receive comes right out of the US and UK.
      • Nope, he's not racist, from what I receive from my mailbox (cchong at marxists dot org), I receive at least 5 mail a day, ALL of them are from the mainland china, well.

        (disclaimer: I am a chinese myself. I live in Hong Kong.)
      • Err nope. I keep stats on these things. Of the last 8,000 spams I've received, over 5,500 originated from APNIC IP addresses, the vast majority of those from Korea, China and Taiwan. Add to that that Telstra recently imposed a Usenet Death Penalty on itself -- to avoid an external one -- because of the amount of spam coming from its servers. I have no problem with Chinese or Korean people, and the only reason I don't like Australians is because they're too good at cricket.

        The amount of US (Roadrunner,
    • Yeah, but just sabotage them with a few microwaves, and you are set. :)

      heh, never image you could DDOS with a bunch of bean burritos.
      • I would rather target the spammer with High-power microwave that burn their _testis_ off.

        Hmm.. actually, the best way of fighting against spam is to educate. If no one buy things from spam, no one would spam and all would be free.. though we have got to notice the difference between smartness and stupidity is that stupidity does not have a hard limit.

  • Japan Japan (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @09:24AM (#5590350) Homepage

    Conspicuous by their absense from this list, huh?

    Ah well.
    • Japan? What about Indonesia? It's got the 4th largest population in the world.
      • The problem isn't population, it's money. If you have 10 customer each capable of paying you 100 dollar per month, it's better than 1000 customer each capable of paying you 1 cent per month, that's it.

        No, i'm not a racist, but this is the truth.
    • Not so surprising really. This smells like pure PR as Telstra at least has no WiFi network and no stated intention to roll one out (although they did pilot some airport hotspots at some point IIRC). Japan has its own successful mobile data service with imode so doesn't need to embrace this stunt for shareholders. For a lot of the telcos, the internal position is imode may be a competitive technology to WiFi. Just because you know it isn't doesn't mean the phone company is awake (they brought us WAP remember

  • 3G in Asia? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by locknloll ( 638243 )
    Interesting stuff, and pretty cool if you travel a lot in these countries, but does this ultimatively mean the end for 3G over there? I don't really know much about 3G activities in Eastern Asia (except for Inode in Japan), so it would be quite nice to see if the telecom companies will continue developing UMTS-like mobile networks. Any tips, comments?
    • I think you wanted to say I-Mode :)

      • I think you wanted to say I-Mode :)

        Even if that is the case (which it is), iMode is not G3. The current G3 system in Japan is the NTT DoCoMo Foma system. While Foma can access iMode sites (which really are normal internet sites which you can access with you web-browser, with some special characters for smileys and such), non-G3 phones can also access them, as can your regular internet connection. For example, I currently use DoCoMo with a Panasonic P503i phone, which is not G3. My phone bandwidth is 9600b

    • According to a CNET Asia article [cnet.com] (21 March), the 3G will compliment the faster, cheaper WiFi when it's unavailable and in case of service-drops:

      "The alliance members do not believe that the new deal will undermine the adoption of third generation (3G) mobile phone service, which will boast high-speed Internet access.

      Kim Jung Soon, director of NESPOT, Korea Telecom's hot spot project group, said the two services will be complementary. Wi-Fi is fast and cheap but limited in coverage, while 3G is more expens

  • Isn't it redundant... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by McNeany ( 596903 )
    Isn't it redundant to say this is the first AND largest... If it is the first... it MUST BE the largest.
    • Joe built a house, then Sally built a bigger house. See how this works? Joe's was first, but Sally's is bigger.

      If they had said the "ONLY and largest", you might have a point.

      Sean

  • Google for the Australians? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GQuon ( 643387 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @09:47AM (#5590435) Journal
    My knee-jerk reaction to this was: OK, now Australians can't use Google anymore.
    But of course, that only applies if they go to China.
    And they can perhaps use a VPN connection to Australia to access all those blocked sites?

    (Sort of an "ask Slashdot" question...)
    • That happens all the time, but remember:

      The aim of the chinese government is to block the website so that the less educated will stay less-educated and the more-educated population is thus controlled.

      Well, to them, if you are so smart that you have overseas proxy/VPN/whatever on your hand, they have no intention to block you as you are already able to do that overseas anyway, they want to keep the inside clean (that is, the mainland poor chinese) , not the outside. :-)

  • Political roaming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cwernli ( 18353 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @09:47AM (#5590438) Homepage
    Now if they would only allow for political roaming too (tanks are not considered as such !), then Asia would not only be innovative, but it would suddenly become interesting too...
  • Hooo Boy! Now they can surf the three ALLOWED pages wirelessly... from anywhere censored internet access is available!
  • Wireless LAN -- yet another way to avoid that large brown pollution cloud which hangs over much of asia!

  • Good or Bad? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @09:58AM (#5590485)
    I can't decide whether I want the establishment to embrace WiFi. I already have WiFi access at the main places I want it, for free. Once somebody tries to cash in on the trend, how long until conflict arises over the spectrum and we start hearing complaints about "pirate WiFi", akin to "pirate radio"?

    • Except that the frequencies used by "WiFi" aren't regulated.

      I guess that there might be some controversy in the US with personal vs. business conflict, seeing as it is that 'The business of USA, is business'.

      • Exactly.

        Look at people who registered a domain name, then years later some business registers a similar name as a trademark and sues for the domain name.

        Back when the domain name was registered, it wasn't even clear that such a thing could ever happen, any more than somebody would sue over using certain variable names in source code. But money changes everything.

        The first thing the telcos will have to do is charge at least $8/mo just to cover billing and advertising, and that's before they even start

  • I live/work in Korea...subscribe to KT, and travel to China several times a year. My iBook is Airport equipped, and this news means it will stay that way. Nice....

  • Pants *then* shoes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by slashd'oh ( 234025 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @10:06AM (#5590522) Homepage

    First, two quotations:

    "'We will begin to see similar agreements in Europe very shortly,' she predicts. 'Mobile carriers will build up their own network first and then work together with other operators.'"

    followed by:

    "Richard McBride,... told Unstrung that the potential challenges the five carriers may face should not be underestimated. 'I think it could be pretty tight to sort this by July, because there are so many commercial pressures pulling in all directions,' he remarks. 'You cannot downplay the technical aspects required if they are looking for full interoperability between the networks.'"

    It's a shame they couldn't choose a standard first and then build their own networks. (I know little about WiFi nets but it does seem counterproductive.)

  • and Telstra Corp.(Australia)

    When was Australia downgraded from a continent and merged with Asia?

  • Using the security vulnerabilities that are endemic [nist.gov] with WI-FI, The Chinese government can take additional steps to repress free thought, and spy on the chinese people as well as any ignorant western business personnel who may be travelling there.
  • by announcing what they modestly claim is the world's first and largest wireless broadband alliance

    If they don't know enough discrete math to realize that they are being redundant, can we really trust their technical background?

    ChicagoFan

    • I'm assuming, of course, that they saw no one else entering the arena in the near future, as opposed to making their alliance but knowing someone else was going to make a smaller alliance by the time of their press conference.

      I'm just being way to pedantic here, aren't I?

      Hello? Hello? (crickets chirping, as even the moderators have left to go play Frogger at this point)

      ChicagoFan

    • Since when is "first & largest" redundant? First != only.

      Sean
  • I bet Australians and such will get their money's worth while traveling in China...
  • I'm thinking it will be bogged down by all those relay spammers.
  • >> what they modestly claim is the world's first and largest wireless broadband alliance

    Most of the time, the first (only) entry into a list is the largest. Also the smallest, the wierdest, or even the [insert your superlative here]. They should not so modest in their claim. It's true after all!
  • I am boycotting Slashdot for considering Australia a part of Asia.

    Down with Slashdot!

  • That the Australians will now have access to the censored chinese internet, or that the chinese will no longer be able to escape the censorship by visiting other countries?

    And for that matter, how long before the idea catches on that, by working together, one ring of networks can try to encompass everyone, and WiFi pirates really WILL be the political protests of the future?

    I mean this seriously. I don't know enough about this to know how much this is going to limit people's freedom of speech, and anywhere china gets involved, so does censorship. Which might, come to think of it, explain the conspicuous absence of japan from this group...

  • China Netcom is still waiting for the 3G license which everyone is guessing the Chinese government will require China Netcom as well as China telecom to adapt the home grown 3G standard calls TD-SCDMA [tdscdma-forum.org] . TD-SCDMA is the third UMT approved 3G standards along with WCDMA and CDMA2000.

    Because of the delay in licensing, China Netcom and China Telecom has been deployed PHS system called XiaoLingTong all over China. PHS is basically a extension to their fixed line operation and there are already company producing

  • A stunning money maker for those involved if they cater to the traffic of consumer stats. Now "they" will be able to track not just your surfing but your travels too. I imagine the anti-terrorist folks would find this good too.
  • So now that austrailia is part of asia, what will their accent sound like?

  • Error in article? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by markov_chain ( 202465 ) on Tuesday March 25, 2003 @02:53PM (#5592855)
    The companies have so far invested more than $100,000 in the deal, excluding investments in the pilot roaming service.

    Wow, they invested a whopping $100,000! Are they sure they can afford that much? With that amount of support, I'm sure the WLAN services will be everywhere in no time!

    Maybe the author meant to write $100M.
  • They wire up one building (Suntec convention center not even all of Suntec) and all the sudden they are signing big deals allowing people to 'roam' in Singapore. This is complete PR bull. My own house's wifi has larger coverage, maybe I should make some deals.

    And yes they have claimed the airport and Singapore Expo, just try and find real info on them at www.starhub.com.

    Wow 20,000 hot spots and 3 of them in Singapore. What a great deal.

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