Boingo Awarded a Patent For Hotspot Access

Boingo has scored a patent for accessing a Wi-Fi hotspot by a mobile device. The patent, no. 7,483,984, was issued in January, but Boingo only started talking about it recently. The patent application was filed in December 2002. According to the company, the methods covered by the patent include: "...accessing wireless carrier networks by mobile computing devices, where a client software application hosted by the device accesses carrier networks using wireless access points. For example, when a computer — or netbook, smartphone or any other Wi-Fi-enabled device — is in a location where there are multiple signals, the patented technology looks at each signal and alerts the user which signal will work, showing the signal as an understandable name and ID for the user.The patent covers all wireless technologies and spectrums, as well as any mobile device that access wireless hotspots." The company is not saying anything about whether or how they will attempt to wield this patent.

Comments

Boingo.

[Thalagyrt]

Boingo is a company that was founded by the founder of Earthlink, Sky Dayton, back in 2001. His idea was to create a nationwide (and later global) network of hotspots, much like Wayport provides. It never took off. The USPTO is slow. Big deal, this isn't a patent troll company. It's a legitimate business that provides a very large network of hotspots. But of course this is Slashdot where nobody actually reads the article or researches what is being talked about and just jumps to conclusions.

Hell, he rented a house from my family out in California when he was starting this company and we got free Internet access from him in exchange for beta testing his service. Wayport has been around longer than Boingo, but didn't get into the wireless hotspot business until 2004. I really don't know what to make of this patent though.