Asia Opens Up to WLAN

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."

Comments

Joy!

[electro_mike]

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

Great, thats all we need

[gowen]

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...

Re:Great, thats all we need

[gowen]

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, SWBell and Pacbell) and UK (Ntlworld ADSL) spam *is* on the increase, though.

Japan Japan

[kahei]

Conspicuous by their absense from this list, huh?

Ah well.

3G in Asia?

[locknloll]

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?

Google for the Australians?

[GQuon]

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...)

Political roaming

[cwernli]

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...

Censored Internet - Everywhere!

[GamezCore.com]

Hooo Boy! Now they can surf the three ALLOWED pages wirelessly... from anywhere censored internet access is available!

Good or Bad?

[timeOday]

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"?

Pants *then* shoes

[slashd'oh]

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.)

First *and* largest?

[ChicagoFan]

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

One ring to bind them: does this mean

[SolemnDragon]

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...

Even if...

[interactive_civilian]

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 9600bps...but I can use iMode and iAppli (Java apps on your phone).

Of course, the G3 system, which currently runs at 384Kbps, is really expensive. NTT charges based on the number of packets instead of connection time, or even a flat rate, unlimited connection fee (unlike DDI Pocket, which I use and runs at 128KBpbs).

Anyway, I am looking forward to when J-phone and/or DDI Pocket start implementing their own G3 networks as they tend to have much better pricing options than NTT DoCoMo.

Error in article?

[markov_chain]

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.