Wireless for Everyone! Or, Let Them Eat Wi-Fi

Intel, IBM and AT&T create new Wi-Fi company to create public “hot spots” throughout the land:

Intel Capital, along with Big Blue, AT&T and investors Apax Partners and 3i, announced the creation of Cometa Networks–formerly known as Project Rainbow–a new company focused on deploying hot spots throughout the United States. Hot spots are public areas where people can access the Internet using products based on 802.11b, or Wi-Fi, a wireless networking standard with a range of about 300 feet from a network’s access points, or radio transmitters.

“Wi-Fi will bring (wireless) computing into the general public environment, leading to increased business productivity and new consumer applications,” Lawrence B. Brilliant, chief executive officer of Cometa Networks said in a release Thursday.

I want a guy named “Brilliant” to run my company.

Cometa plans to deploy 20,000 Wi-Fi access points in the coming years. Since the company will act as a wholesaler, selling access to carriers and large companies, it will not set pricing for services and will not market itself as a brand name.

Cometa’s network and service will be designed to work with the same sign-on procedures, e-mail addresses, IDs and passwords people use on their desktop PCs, so they can move out into the field with a notebook computer or handheld device and continue Web surfing and e-mailing with few hassles. [ZDNet]

This is another big step toward ubiquitous connectivity – soon there will be NO ESCAPE.