Sunday, September 15, 2002

New phrase Parking Pads I don't know about you, but "Hot Spots" seem so cool to me.  To bad they don't solve any problems in the majority of my personal and business life, free or not.  I do look for them when I'm planning to go on vacation.  But how often is that, 1 week a year. Now a concept I like to see someone seriously invest in and build out soon is what I'm calling Parking Pads.  What's is it?  It's a location along the busy business driven highways and freeways where business professionals can pull over and into, park their cars securely and connect to the Internet. In plain English: It's a parking space with good 802.11b wireless reception to the Internet. Many business professionals today like salesman run a mini office out of their cars.  Included are PDAs and notebooks equiped with printers and other peripherals.  But what they lack is good affordable broadband Internet connectivity.  But that's not enough.  They also need a convenient secure parking area along their daily route to use momentary with the Internet connectivity. Imagine if all Exxons and Mobil stations had this feature.  Starbucks' wireless footprint would be nano compared to what this network would look like. This could be the spark that starts 10,000 APs being built. Most gas stations would only need to add an antenna and broadband connectivity to the Internet.   Maybe also some cones or signs to mark the parking pads.  Other than the ongoing broadband networks costs in most cases the facilities needed are already inplace.   Remember they would really only be supplying a parking spot. Wait for 3G? Why? These locations would offer broadband (11Mbps - I don;t see anyone talking anything near this with the generation of 3G) today and could always keep ahead of the public cell curve as business users justify paying for speed improvements with the time saved.  I still see many people using pay phones today at rest areas even though we have a pretty mature cell network footprint. Where to start?  Roads like the Turnpike and the Parkway.  Each have plenty of rest areas.  Might as well go for the heavy hitters first.  Oh yeah, don't forget the popular convenient stores like Wawa and eateries like Duncin Donuts.  They seem to be on some highly driven roads and get plenty of business customers.  So which gas station chain is offering the best deal this week on parking pads to fill up my "Autoblogging Radio"? 10:49:02 AM  comment []     SnapStream Personal Video Station: Record TV, Watch Anytime, Anywhere "With revolutionary software from SnapStream, digitally record your favorite television shows on your PC and watch them anytime, anywhere." This product helps you record/digitize the content but once you have it how to get access to it if where your at at the time it is not convient to access a PC. It's the anytime, anywhere problem that still needs to be worked out. And once we work the options out, price points will need to be low for mass appeal and adoption. 9:34:52 AM  comment []     [CNET News.com] Intel's got wireless in hand David Coursey, AnchorDesk executive editor, ZDNet " At the Intel Developer Forum in San Jose, Calif., ZDNet AnchorDesk Executive Editor David Coursey looks at the latest technologies coming from Intel, including reference designs for a new wireless handheld computer." 9:18:54 AM  comment []     [CNET News.com] Intel gadget wirelessly joins PCs, TVs "The first generation of the Intel gadget will let people view and play PC-stored image and audio files on a television or stereo receiver, said Vogel. A subsequent generation will also permit the transfer of video. By offering video and photo capabilities, the Intel adapter serves up more bang for the buck than current devices, which mainly store and play music. " I wonder how easy it would be to adapt one of these onto my car radio. 8:57:47 AM  comment []

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