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Asia Opens Up to WLAN

Posted by chrisd on 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."

6 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Joy! by electro_mike · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

  2. Japan Japan by kahei · · Score: 3, Interesting


    Conspicuous by their absense from this list, huh?

    Ah well.

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    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  3. 3G in Asia? by locknloll · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

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    -- Power corrupts, but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
  4. Google for the Australians? by GQuon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...)

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    Irene KHAAAAAAN!
  5. One ring to bind them: does this mean by SolemnDragon · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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...

    --
    "I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
  6. Error in article? by markov_chain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

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