All Articles Tagged wifi

Thanks to Will for the video!

I got to my local Rogers (corporate owned) store way early, and was immediately nervous upon seeing tons of cars. They were filled with senior citizens — strange iPhone demographic, I thought. When the doors to the mall opened at 7am, the seniors raced in. Near jog, no joke. I thought I’d end up behind a ton of angry, eager iPhone golden oldies, but a funny thing happened: they raced right on past Rogers. Turns out they jog/power walk/amble about there every morning. Who knew?

One week later, and how are things now? I just got my first bill (wow, that was faster than 3G!). $30/6GB data, $35 Mega My 5, $15 Visual Voice Mail Value Pack, $35 activation fee, plus crazy Canadian taxes. $124. (Plus the initial $299 for the 16GB handset…)

But what else is going on in my home and native land? Read on to find out!

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UPDATE: More confusion! Stylemonkey in the comments below says Rogers claims not to be doing this when he called in over the phone. However, I spoke to a couple more Rogers reps and they’re still insisting they’re being told Rogers will bill for WiFi use, perplexingly by using the EMEI number of you phone. While they say Rogers can’t tell data usage this way, they can tell WiFi is being used, and will bill based on time. Ridiculous? Sounds like it. But what’s even more ridiculous is Rogers telling this to (some of?) their stores and people in the field. Crazy!

ORIGINAL POST:

So I was waiting in line at a Rogers store yesterday when the staff came out and said that if we didn’t take the Rogers’ iPhone specific plans, anytime we used WiFi it would be counted towards our custom plans (like the newly announced $30/6GB promo). They said that even though the iPhone would show WiFi, it would still count down (crazy fast) 3G data, and we’d only find out come bill time when charges came in. One of them said they were waiting on clarification from Rogers. Another said this was what Apple wanted and implemented. (Yeah, I know… I’m just repeating the comments).

We didn’t run the story then because we couldn’t get any confirmation of the rumor, but now other reports of people being told the same thing at different Rogers stores has turned up.

Read on for more!

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A VoIP company called iCall has developed a program for the iPhone that enables seamless switching of calls from GSM to WiFi. Meaning: iCall will prompt you to switch your phone calls, mid-call, to WiFi so you don’t waste your minutes. Meaning: It’s Free! Though the desktop version of iCall is only available for Windows (Mac Support is on the way) this will probably be one of the more useful VoIP clients for the iPhone.

People who are familiar with T-Mobile’s use of UMA and HotSpot@Home technology will tell you that calls over Wi-Fi are not only free (with the right plan), but often times even better. Using VoIP instead of your minutes would help ease the drain for plenty of users who are always near WiFi and potentially offer international travelers free calls back home.

Currently, iCall is in private beta but plans for a public release very soon. In fact, you won’t even have to jailbreak for this app because the folks over at iCall are confident it’ll be a part of the App Store. 

ReadVia

Okay, so technically Apple isn’t patenting “Spidey Sense” (TM Marvel Comics, of course), but a system to warn users of impending dropped signals, be they cellular or WiFi.

So, by way of example, if I called Steve Jobs to tell him I snapped a pick of the iPhone 3.0 prototype, and Rogers’ service began to cut out, I’d get a notification (sound, alert dialog, or vibe) warning me I was going to lose the signal, and on his end, El Jobso would likewise be alerted.

If my device happened to have an accelerometer and GPS (hello, iPhone 3G!), location, velocity, etc. could be weighed into the alert equation. So, if I was driving away from Cupertino at a hurried rate, spy shots in hand, the iPhone could factor that into calculating how long it would be until I lost signal.

In a second filing, Apple is also working on a way to find lost, Blue Tooth equipped devices, from currently equipped gear like headsets, to tiny BT enabled chips placed on anything from your keys to your kids.

Again, using different data sets like signal strength, the iPhone could figure out which direction and at what distance the missing item (or small human) is located, using helpful cues like volume and frequency of alerts to re-create the classic game of “cold… warm… warmer… hot… on FIRE!”

Check the read link for all the official diagrams and verbiage.

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Let’s do some catching up. First, iPhone users had free AT&T Wi-Fi at their hotspots. Then we lost it. Then it popped back up. Then it disappeared. And now we’re going to get it…eventually? If and when they do decide to officially give free Wi-Fi to iPhone users (June, perhaps?), I will be the first to commend them.

Now Boingo, in a newsletter to customers, goes and announces free Wi-Fi for iPhone users, albeit with an asterisk. That asterisk being: watch a 15 second advertisement for 15 minutes of free wi-fi in selected airports. Boingo is also encroaching on AT&T territory by offering Wi-Fi services at Starbucks locations. This piece of news isn’t as cheery for iPhone users because well, we have to pay.

Since there are around a gazillion Starbucks around the country, I’m sure Boingo Wi-Fi and AT&T Wi-Fi would work just fine. But would AT&T work out a roaming-esque deal with Boingo to provide free Wi-Fi for their iPhone customers at Boingo-specific locations?

Now THAT would be customer service (since it is AT&T, I guess we can rule that out).