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When you think about the term “wireless,” you might envision your cell phone and stop there. But just as cell phones have evolved by leaps and bounds from the big “brick phones” of early 90’s, the wireless world spans far beyond cell service.

Wireless technology bring you “hot spots” at airports and coffee shops around the world – delivering the Internet where ever you are. Wireless allows you to send an essay from your laptop on the patio to the printer in the upstairs office. Wireless sends your digital music collection on your laptop to the stereo in the living room. The air is full of invisible radio waves carrying all of the wonders of the wireless world.

Articles

Attorney General Abbott Observes National Teen Dating Violence Awareness & Prevention Month
Office of the Texas Attorney General, February 8, 2010

AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today warned Texas teens and parents about the dangers of sexting. Attorney General Abbott’s comments came during a visit to the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline (NTDAH). Based in Austin, NTDAH offers troubled teens the only 24-hour help line in the country where trained teen advocates counsel fellow teens about digital harassment.

Attorney General Abbott also encouraged Texas teens to contact NTDAH when they encounter peer pressure to participate in sexting. Sexting is the emerging practice of teens electronically sending sexually explicit messages or images, primarily between cell phones. Attorney General Abbott, as part of National Teen Dating Violence & Prevention Month, warned young Texans and their families that sexting can lead to embarrassment, regret, and even legal dangers, including possible prison time.

“Fortunately, NTDAH and its trained teen advocates are working to counsel young Texans and help fellow teens learn to avoid the peer pressure, shame and damages associated with sexting,” Attorney General Abbott said. “Young Texans should never send a revealing or explicit picture of themselves. Once an image has been sent, it cannot be controlled. A single instance of bad judgment can lead to long-term regret, embarrassment or worse. Anyone who possesses sexually suggestive pictures of a minor faces criminal investigation and up to 10 years in prison.”

Attorney General Abbott reminded young Texans that a message’s sender cannot control the message’s distribution. A recent survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that nearly 20 percent of sexting recipients have passed the image to a third person – who the original sender may or may not know. Suggestive photographs also can be transferred to a computer, posted on public Web sites or printed and distributed.

Before pressing “Send,” teens should consider five tips:

• Do not assume anything sent or posted is going to remain private.
• Anything sent or posted in cyberspace will never truly go away.
• Do not give in to the pressure to do something that causes discomfort, even in cyberspace.
• Consider the recipient’s reaction.
• Nothing is truly anonymous.

The attorney general also warned teens that sexting can be a crime. The owner of a computer or cell phone containing images of nude or semi-nude minors can be investigated and prosecuted for possessing and distributing child pornography charges – a felony. Teens in possession of sexually suggestive images of classmates or companions under 18 face up to 10 years in prison.

Attorney General Abbott added: “Growing up can be a difficult learning process, so it is important for parents, counselors and even fellow students to help prevent teenagers from making bad decisions. Often, it helps to remind someone about consequences – which in the case of sexting can range from humiliation to suspension from school, bans on athletic participation, job loss or college scholarship revocation. We’re asking young Texans to think twice before sexting – but don’t take it from us, just ask a fellow teen by calling NTDAH.”

The most important source of prevention and education is active parenting. Texas parents must have frank conversations with their children about the potential for embarrassment and the legal ramifications of sexting. If teens do not want a photo or text message to fall into the wrong hands – including strangers, potential employers, teachers or college admission officers – they should not send it.

Attorney General Abbott concluded: “No teenager should succumb to peer pressure and be convinced that sexting is harmless or okay. It is not. When you are young, it is sometimes hard to understand the lasting implications of your actions, but the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline can provide our children with the positive encouragement and guidance they need to respond to these challenges.”

Healthy baby campaign uses texts to reach mothers
Associated Press, February 3, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) — Expectant mothers are getting a new tool to help keep themselves and their babies healthy: pregnancy tips sent directly to their cell phones.

The so-called text4baby campaign is the first free, health education program in the U.S. to harness the reach of mobile phones, according to its sponsors, which include Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, WellPoint and CareFirst BlueCross and Blue Shield. Wireless carriers including AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have agreed to waive all fees for receiving the texts.
Read more.

Earthquake Survivor Calls iPhone a Life Saver
NBC Miami, January 20, 2010

Usually, when someone says their iPhone is a life saver, they are talking about the phone helping them find a good takeout spot or an emergency bathroom.

When Dan Woolley says it, he really means it. He used a medical app saved on his phone to treat a leg injury after the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince collapsed around him.
Read more.

Smart Phones, Stupid Policy
Institute for Policy Innovation, October 1, 2009
It would be hard to imagine an industry today that is more “dynamic” than the wireless industry. In a relatively short time a “cell phone” has become a necessity to virtually everyone, and one of the areas of most rapid technological innovation is in wireless handsets. Every few months one company or another introduces a new, feature-rich handset, which consumers eagerly gobble up.

At the same time, service providers compete fiercely for customers, continually upgrading their networks to provide better and faster service and even
financing consumers’ purchase of sophisticated handsets.
Read more.

Mobile Internet Use Shrinks Digital Divide
New York Times, July 22, 2009
Quick: Picture an Internet aficionado, circa 1995.

The first image that comes to my mind is Dennis Nedry, the embryo thief in “Jurassic Park,” who met his untimely end facing down a dinosaur in a soggy mud pit. The second is Milton Waddams, the befuddled, staple-hoarding drone from “Office Space.”
Read more.

Why derail the mobile revolution?
Mobile Future, July 9, 2009
Call it a “Mobile Revolution.”

This year’s parade of cool new wireless products is beyond doubt the greatest, most diverse series of product launches in wireless history. Apple’s new operating system (OS) and new iPhone are the obvious places to start, but look at everything else coming to market…
Read more.

Cellphone savings worth research
Boston Globe, July 12, 2009
When we looked into switching cellphone companies recently, we were soon drowning in options.

T-Mobile USA alone offers more than 40 individual and family plans. Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint Nextel offer dozens more. And then there’s a pack of upstarts offering prepaid service, including Boost Mobile (a unit of Sprint Nextel that uses Nextel’s network), Virgin Mobile USA (which uses Sprint’s network), and MetroPCS (which has its own network in Boston and some other cities.)
Read more.

How to vanquish mobile spam
CNET, July 7, 2009
I got my first SMS spam message last week and it infuriated me.

The mortgage-related text message was more than just a nuisance, like e-mail spam is. It also was a strong indication of how marketers have managed to invade every private communication space consumers have.
Read more.

Are Smarter Gadgets Good for the Planet?
BusinessWeek, June 25, 2009
With the explosion of low-cost chips, from Intel’s Atom processor to low-power Wi-Fi sensors, just about everything is “getting smart” these days. There are known environmental benefits to this kind of cheap-and-easy digital intelligence, many of them heavily promoted by IBM as part of its Smarter Planet initiative. There’s the smart grid, of course, which adds data-rich intelligence to the energy system, but there’s also smart water, smart transportation (including rail, electric vehicles, and traffic), and even smart garbage. It’s what Intel regularly describes as the “2%, 98%” rule—that operating info tech contributes only 2% of global carbon emissions and can be used to minimize the other 98%.

Providing Cellphones for the Poor
New York Times, June 14, 2009
John Cobb, 59, a former commercial fisherman who is disabled with cirrhosis of the liver and emphysema, lives in a studio apartment in Greensboro, N.C., on a fixed monthly income of $674. He has been hoping to receive more government assistance, and in February, he did.

It came in the form of a free cellphone and free service. Read more.

Broadcasters compete to put TV on cellphones
Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2009
The digital switch is the end of one TV era, but broadcasters and device companies hope it’s opening up another. Read more.

Smartphone Rises Fast From Gadget to Necessity
New York Times, June 10, 2009
In today’s recession-racked economy, penny-pinching is a national pastime. But people are still opening their wallets for smartphones. Read more.

US Lawmakers Plan Ban On New State, Local Cell-Phone Taxes
Dow Jones Newswire, June 10, 2009
U.S. lawmakers are setting the stage to halt state and local governments from imposing new taxes on cell-phone and mobile e-mail services. Read more.

Google preparing to steer more telephone traffic
Associated Press, March 12, 2009
Internet search leader Google Inc. is preparing to steer more telephone traffic through an online command center that it acquired nearly two years ago. Read more.

Turning cheap cell phones into smarter phones
CNET, March 11, 2009
iSkoot is trying to make cheap cell phones smarter. The company, which provides mobile Web services, announced Wednesday that it is offering a software development kit to mobile handset manufacturers so that they can turn their inexpensive feature-phones into Web-enabled devices that can access and get live updates for popular Web services like Facebook, IM, e-mail, Twitter and other social media sites. Read more.

Oklahoma, Utah lead going cell-only; Calif., N.Y. lag
Houston Chronicle, March 11, 2009
Trendy California isn’t a trendsetter when it comes to relying on cell phones. And while the 1987 movie Wall Street helped introduce the then-brick-sized mobile phone to popular culture, New York and other Northeast states lag in dropping landlines. Surprisingly, Oklahoma and Utah lead in going wireless, according to federal estimates released today. Read more.

Can a smartphone make you a smart driver? Perhaps.
New York Times, March 6, 2009
Most BlackBerry owners, for example, know they can improve their Interstate I.Q. by using the navigation function of their smartphones, and people with a Web browser on their phone can check out World Traffic Cams to see if there is congestion at the Lincoln Tunnel before heading into Manhattan. Indeed, our love affair with cellphones is increasingly being coupled with our love affair with the automobile, spawning applications — some silly, some sublime — that drivers can download to their mobile handsets for little or no money. Read more.

Stalkers turn to cell phones to ‘textually harass’
Houston Chronicle, March 3, 2009
The college student had endured months of online and cell phone harassment from her ex-boyfriend. She ignored the barrage of e-mails, changed her phone number and dismantled online profiles to cut him off.

Then one evening, her cell phone signaled a new text message. It was him again. Read more.

World’s poor drive growth in global cell phone use
Associated Press, March 2, 2009
Six in ten people around the world now have cell phone subscriptions, signaling that mobile phones are the communications technology of choice, particularly in poor countries, according to a U.N. report published Monday.

By the end of last year there were an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with about 1 billion in 2002, the International Telecommunication Union said.
Fixed line subscriptions increased at a much slower pace to 1.27 billion from about 1 billion over the same period.
Read more.

Mapping a New, Mobile Internet
Business Week, February 26, 2009
Imagine that your business had a complete log of your customers’ wanderings—every trip to the grocery store, every work commute, every walk with the dog. What could you learn about them? Armed with that knowledge, what sorts of goods and services might you try to sell them? Just as important, if you made your best pitch—relevant and timely, of course—would customers concerned about privacy tell you to get lost? This isn’t science fiction. A nascent industry extending from the laboratories of Google (GOOG) and Nokia (NOK) to a host of data-fueled startups is wrestling with these very questions.

On a snowy winter evening in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, a small team of analysts at a startup called Sense Networks is poring over the movements of nearly 4 million cell-phone users over the course of a year. They have been tracked by global positioning systems, by cell towers that catch their signals, or by local Wi-Fi networks that detect their presence. As far as the Sense analysts can see, these people have no names: They are simply dots moving across the maps on Sense’s computers. Read more.

Report: ‘Sidejacking’ session information over WiFi easy as pie
August 01, 2007-Users may think that their personal data is safe when they use a secure login page online, but that’s quite far from the truth. In fact, everything from the contents of your e-mail, who your friends and acquaintances are, and almost anything else you can think of could be easily exposed by hackers if browsed via WiFi network, security firm Errata Security pointed out in a recent paper presented at this year’s Black Hat 2007 and seen by Ars Technica. Read More

Fewer Hang-ups with U.S. Wireless Telephone Competition: American Consumers Use More Minutes and Pay Lower Prices American Consumer Institute, Sept. 27, 2007. Read More

How WiFi Works

Sprint Expands Faster Mobile Broadband in Texas
Wireless News, April 27, 2007
Similar article from Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine

EarthLink To Build 600-Square-Mile Wi-Fi Net In Houston
CMP TechWeb, February 14, 2007
Same article from InformationWeek

Wi-Fi Internet gains momentum in Tyler, Texas, area
By Greg Junek, Tyler Morning Telegraph, November 26, 2006
Article available at AccessMyLibrary.com

AT&T expands broadband satellite service to rural consumers
San Antonio Business Journal, May 10, 2007

Research Papers

Network Management Restrictions May Harm Rural Wireless Internet Service Consumers American Consumer Institute, May 2, 2008

The American Consumer Institute today released a ConsumerGram noting that the debate over the network management practices of ISPs has largely overlooked the impact of potential legislation on rural wireless consumers. The report concludes that even the best-intentioned policies produce unintended consequences, and network management prohibitions could threaten the existence of small, rural wireless ISPs, thereby harming their customers. Read More.