[IP] Cell carriers becoming concerned about cell data to wifi adapters (fwd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/technology/circuits/14share.html?8hpib
July 14, 2005
For Surfers, a Roving Hot Spot That Shares
By JOHANNA JAINCHILL
When the Sunningdale Country Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., opened its gates last
week to a location shoot
for "The Sopranos," a new fixture was on display in the mobile dressing rooms -
a roving Wi-Fi hot
spot.
With a device called the Junxion Box, the production company can set up a
mobile multiuser Internet
connection anywhere it gets cellphone service. The box, about the size of a
shoebox cover, uses a
cellular modem card from a wireless phone carrier to create a Wi-Fi hot spot
that lets dozens of people
connect to the Internet.
The staff members of "The Sopranos," squeezed into two trailer dressing rooms,
needed only the
Junxion Box and their laptops to exchange messages and documents with the
production offices at
Silvercup Studios in Queens.
"We used to fax everything," said Henry J. Bronchtein, the show's co-executive
producer. "The paper
would jam; it was messy. This is much more reliable."
Junxion Boxes have also been spotted on Google's commuter buses for employees
and along Willie
Nelson's latest tour. But what may be a boon for wandering Web surfers could
quickly become a threat
to wireless providers.
"The premise is one person buys an air card and one person uses the service,
not an entire
neighborhood," said Jeffrey Nelson, executive director for corporate
communications at Verizon
Wireless. "Giving things away for free doesn't work anymore. It never did."
Unlimited service on cellular modem cards for PC's costs about $80 a month. The
carriers are clearly
worried about a technology that could destroy that business, but they have not
formed a united front
against Junxion.
The makers of the Junxion Box, based in Seattle, seem eager to head off any
battle by forming
partnerships with the wireless companies.
"We're not trying to build a radar detector," said John Daly, 42, co-founder of
Junxion Inc. and vice
president for business development. "We believe we're creating an opportunity
for the carriers. It may
not be entirely comfortable for them right now, but we hope we can get to a
point where we can
collaborate with them."
The Junxion Box was created by Mr. Daly and two partners, David Hsiao, 38, the
company's president,
and Peter Polson, 31, vice president for product development. The commercial
version of the box retails
for $699. They plan a less expensive consumer version next year.
John Kampfe, director of media and industry analyst relations for Cingular
Wireless, said the Junxion
Box was being evaluated and certified by Cingular and could eventually be sold
in conjunction with
Cingular's wireless service for wide-area networks.
"There is a whole pricing model that has to take place with the Junxion Box,"
Mr. Kampfe said.
So far Junxion has about 200 customers, many of whom are testing the product.
The company went
around the wireless companies by making Trio Teknologies, a wireless services
reseller, its exclusive
distributor.
Peter Schneider, a partner at Gotham Sound, the communications equipment
company in New York that
supplied Junxion Boxes to the sets of both "The Sopranos" and the rapper 50
Cent's upcoming movie,
"Get Rich or Die Tryin'," said his customers would not be interested in
wireless modem cards were it not
for the possibility to share the connection through the Junxion Box.
"That's the exact appeal of it" for his customers, he said. "That you can rent
it to a group. As word gets
out, it will become part of the communication equipment they rent."
But for carriers like Verizon Wireless, which spent $1 billion on its broadband
network, it is difficult to
let users piggyback on that service. "We're not surprised that people are
building services like this and
trying to attach them to our network," Mr. Nelson of Verizon said. "It verifies
how cool and how
important our network is. We're going to protect that investment."
That may prove to be an uphill battle as new technologies like Junxion alter
the wireless carriers'
control over the use of their networks.
"That's just something they have got to live with because that's the technology
now," said David
Anderson, Willie Nelson's tour manager of 31 years. "Most people wouldn't or
couldn't afford to have
that many cards. They weren't going to get 22 customers, but now they got 6."
There are two Junxion Boxes in each of the two tour buses and each has three
wireless modem cards so
they can switch to the cellular provider network with the best local coverage.
It allows Mr. Nelson,
whom Mr. Anderson describes as a computer geek, to check his e-mail and surf
the Web while on the
road.
"The Junxion Box is good for going down the highway," Mr. Anderson said from
Hillsboro, Tex., where
Mr. Nelson was performing earlier this month. "It was frustrating in the older
days. It's finally the way it
should be."
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