It's yet another case of Texas-filed lawsuits being slapped at large companies: Wi-LAN, an Ottawa-based company that provides and licenses patents for telecommunications equipment, has sued about 22 companies including Sony, Apple, Best Buy, Netgear, Belkin, HP, and Intel among many others.

Wi-LAN claims that the 22 companies have infringed on their WiFi and DSL patents, and that they are illegally using Wi-LAN's Wi-Fi and DSL technology in their devices such as wireless routers and modems. The company currently claims ownership on about 280 issued and pending patents.

Will this lawsuit hold water? Do check this space for more updates!

People who are always doing business on the go should check out Verizon's new product, the UM150 wireless USB Modem for Verizon Wireless. Compatible with most computing devices - desktops, notebooks, tablets, etc. - this small, wireless modem lets you get connected to Verizon Wireless high-speed broadband. The UM150 wireless modem is optimized for Verizon Wireless to ensure higher performance compared to the usual DSL connections.

When used with Verizon Wireless' EV-DO network, the UM150 has average download speeds of 600 kbps and average upload speeds of 500-800 kbps. The small wireless modem also features a retractable antenna as well as a Y-shaped extension cable for more flexibility.

The UM150 is priced at US$ 79.99 after a US$ 50 mail-in rebate, and comes with a two-year agreement with Verizon Wireless. It's certainly not free like Sony and T-Mobile's joint offer for the PSP, but still is a great deal.

Motorola has developed a WiMAX chipset for cellular phones. This is part of the company's move to create "controlled application centric architecture" which supports both 3G and 4G devices.

WiMax or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access provides gadgets to transfer data wirelessly at a high speed comparable with a DSL or broadband connections. Cellular companies have been looking into this technology as a method to increase the bandwidth of phones allowing a variety of data intensive applications to be used.

The new chipset that Motorola has developed is said to be superior in many ways to the current 3G technology in cost, size, speed and most importantly, power. We won't have to wait long to get our hands on this kind of technology either since the company will be releasing new phones with this chipset by next year. Vice president for Platform Planning and Systems Architecture at Motorola Gary Koerper was understandable very excited about this saying:

The introduction of the WiMAX chipset modem solution marks yet another significant milestone in Motorola's end-to-end WiMAX solutions portfolio, allowing users to enjoy a superior Mobile Internet experience. With this chipset, Motorola has been able to redefine what is possible for WiMAX mobile devices, enabling a wider portfolio of devices, from voice-centric handsets to multimedia terminals.

In the past few years, Motorola has been very aggressive at marketing their WiMax infrastructure products. If the sales of these new WiMax enabled phone picks up, then their investments in developing this technology will be paying off with large dividends.

Looks like WiMax technology has finally come of age, and even before Samsung launched their M8000 which uses the WiBro service in Korea, Motorola and Intel Corp. have already announced plans for their collaborative adoption of the mobile WiMax which is based on 802.16e standards.

Now, Nokia jumps on the bandwagon as well as it announces that they will soon start selling WiMax-enabled cellphones by 2008. By the end of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008, the giant mobile communications company would have already sold Flexi WiMAX Base Stations operating in the 2.5 GHz band and in the 3.5 GHz band.

So what's so hot about WiMax? Think of Wi-fi chips embedded in your mobile phone. So, just about any place where a wi-fi cloud is hovering, you can get connected to the Internet via your WiMax-capable mobile phone.

We've already heard of PDAs and other devices in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world which are already WiMax technology as early as now. What makes the technology entirely different from the ordinary Wi-fi setup is that it will be more broadly available. Nokia describes its Flexi WiMAX Base Stations as compact, lightweight, indoor-outdoor compatible, and requires only low power consumption.

WiMax is basically a DSL connection on your mobile phone, and mobile providers won't worry too much, since there's no danger of overloading the system, unlike when a provider gets swamped with an overload of voice calls.

Novatel Wireless, a company known best at QJ.NET for providing wireless cards, has apparently branched off into developing complete fixed/wireless convergence solutions for both wired and wireless Internet service providers. Recently announced by Novatel Wireless was the development of the Ovation(tm) MCD 3000, a 3.5G multimedia application console that works with current EV-DO networks and is upgradable along the same evolutionary path.

"As we see operators worldwide begin to combine standards for fixed and mobile service on the network side, we are executing on our vision for fixed mobile convergence, by deploying innovative devices that allow operators to offer more services and ultimately give end users control over bandwidth resources," said Peter Leparulo, CEO of Novatel Wireless. "The Ovation MCD3000 will allow North American operators to benefit from 3.5G spectrum efficiency, while delivering advanced multimedia streaming services."

The first generation in the MCD 3000 North American family will come in a modern compact shape the size of a cell phone. It is aimed squarely at the businesses sector; giving small business owners a suitable alternative to wired broadband. Download speeds will burst up to 3.1Mbps and uplink speeds max out at 1.8Mbps; making it faster than most DSL connections, and comparable to cable.

The wider selection of consoles that make up the Novatel Ovation family are a "portfolio of desktop and portable consoles integrated with wide area wireless technology to provide broadband communications and the delivery of multimedia applications."

The Ovation hardware is all powered by Novatel's Conversa(tm) suite of software that offers "wireless broadband Internet access, advanced networking, and intelligent routing depending on quality of service and cost, multimedia application support, advanced security firewalls and protocol flexibility." If only we could get Novatel to offer a solution for home users that would allow us to eliminate the need for separate (wired) Cable TV, Internet and phone connections and the service providers that come with them.

It seems that Brits favor WiFi more than WiMax. So as not to leave you in the dark, these two are very different from each other -- WiMax stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access by the WiMAX Forum, formed in April 2001 to promote conformance and interoperability of the standard IEEE 802.16, also known as WirelessMAN. The Forum describes WiMAX as "a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL."

On the other hand, WiFi is a brand originally licensed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe the underlying technology of wireless local area networks (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications. A person with a WiFi device, be it a computer, telephone, or PDA, can connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. Hotspots can range from a single room to many square miles of overlapping hotspots. Wi-Fi can also be used to create a Wireless mesh network.

The usual problems of Wi-Fi won't be seen in WiMax. In WiMax, networks can grow but users could still maintain usable bandwidth, and interference just doesn't occur. So from that alone, you'd think that WiMax is better than WiFi. But according to some educated opinions, WiMax just won't work in the UK. The reason? Issues in spectrum allocations. There is no uniform global licensed spectrum for WiMAX which equates to the fact that WiMAX has no in-built interference protection. It will assume any other network it comes across is part of the same network and, if it isn't, the network is likely to die, resulting in horrendous data loss.

That isn't the case for WiFi since WiFi networks are friendly towards each other, in the sense that if there is interference from another WiFi network, each will try and ignore the other or at least minimize the interference they cause each other. With that, even if British WiMax players such as PCCW and Pipex have spectrum that could power WiMax, it is most likely that when the two companies will launch services, they'll be delivering "private" networks and WiMAX for the masses is unlikely to happen, unless more spectrum is released.

Two years ago, the U.S. was 10th among nations of the world regarding the number of citizens with access to high-speed Internet.

Today, it's not even number 10.

Is there a problem, here? It depends on who you ask. Everyone agrees that investment in broadband infrastructure is a good thing in terms of economic activity. They also agree that growth is in danger of exceeding capacity. What people disagree on is how the problem should be addressed.

Critics claim that broadband is being held hostage by a "cozy duopoly" of DSL and cable providers, and that consumers suffer as a result. While it is true that small and rural communities lack choices in this regard, larger metro areas often have a choice of three or more providers, plus wireless - which in some large cities, is being offered "free" to residents as a public service, financed with tax revenue.

Companies are indeed making large investments in high-speed Internet. As prices (in some markets, at least) fall,  consumers increasingly abandon their slow "dial-up" connections for cable and DSL. While the U.S. is behind 11 other nations in terms of high-speed access, it's worth noting that when dial-up users are factored in, the number of U.S. users as a percentage is substantially higher than in other nations - and at least 60% of those appear to be occasional, casual users who express little interest in broadband.

Considering the growth of web activity, however, most everyone agrees that universal high-speed Internet access would be a good thing. The question is, what should the U.S. government do to encourage this, if anything?

This is a complex and contentious issue. On one side are those who believe that it should be left completely to the unfettered free-market.  This would involve auctioning off spectrum to the highest bidders to "ensure that it goes to its highest-valued use." Presumably, some of this use would go to universal broadband.  These people believe regulations should be eliminated so providers would not be required to negotiate with local governments to offer video services over broadband lines,.  "Net Neutrality," the idea that all web content should be treated equally, should not be legislated, they say. Because the Internet represents a dynamic and constantly growing marketplace, they claim that any regulation would be counterproductive.

If private corporations' first mandate is to serve the public good, this viewpoint is valid. It should be noted, however, that present corporate charter laws no longer require that they serve the public good at all. The sole purpose of a corporation is to make a profit and a return on shareholder investment.

If the large telecom companies can be trusted to serve the best interests of the public without government oversight - even if it means a smaller profit margin -, then by all means they should be left alone to do so.