EarthLink is in the spirit of giving! Today, the ISP is kicking off a service that will give Philadelphia residents, workers and visitors an opportunity to try on its EarthLink Wi-Fi product free-of-charge through January 21, 2007.

Available to consumers who live, work or visit EarthLink's 15-square-mile proof-of-concept (POC) area, which extends east of Broad Street and north of the Vine Street Expressway (http://www.emnwifi.net/cities/philadelphia/), EarthLink Wi-Fi offers down-and-upload speeds up to 1Mbps.

"Our goal is clear: build a state-of-the-art wireless network across Philadelphia's 135 square miles. A key to doing this is gathering valuable feedback and insights from users of the network as construction continues," said Donald Berryman, executive vice president of EarthLink and president of the ISP's municipal networks unit. "Further, we are happy to launch this service at this time, and hope residents and visitors enjoy Wi-Fi access, free-of-charge."

Vonage has reached a deal with Earthlink today to resell wireless internet services in cities like New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Milpitas, California where Earthlink has Wi-Fi networks.

Pricing has yet to be set on the Vonage broadband service, which will be bundled with their VoIP offering and support a “next generation Vonage Wi-Fi phone,” according to the announcement’s press release. And while the deal might seem to be detrimental to EarthLink’s own VoIP service, TrueVoice1, an EarthLink exec said Sunday night that it’s “part of the company’s DNA” to sell wholesale network services to any provider who wants access, and to compete on price, support and services at the application layer.

SpectraLink announces its next-generation Wi-Fi telephony handsets, the NetLink 8000 Series Wireless Telephones. The new NetLink 8000 Series handsets are the first commercially available enterprise-grade handsets to support the IEEE 802.11a, b and g radio standards, allowing businesses to choose the most appropriate Wi-Fi implementation for application segmentation, interference mitigation and user density.

Buzz Technologies is pleased to announce it has successfully won a contract with the Thai Military to supply and install Wifi and Wimax systems to the Thai Military Lanna Center, Chiang Mai, Army Unit 33, The Third Army Region. The agreement is a part of an extensive program to test various Buzz Technologies products and services.

Sutida Suwunnavid said "we are all delighted to have the Royal Thai Military as a client and look to develop this and other Government Contracts in the future."

Boingo Wireless, announced that the Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype is the first Wi-Fi device to ship with the Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit, an open-source software utility that enables Wi-Fi devices to roam on commercial hot spots.

The Boingo Embedded software provides background detection, association and authentication of public Wi-Fi signals automatically, making it easy for consumers to roam onto commercial hot spots and eliminating the need to enter user ID or credit card information for each hot spot they use.

The Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype incorporates familiar Skype features and can be used with either open wireless networks or commercial hot spots that are part of the Boingo Mobile service. The phone also supports WPA and WPA2 with PSK security and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi network compatibility.

Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment each week for Engadget.com. This week Ross Rubin writes, "Switched On: Pretty fly for the WiFi" a review comparing Sony's Mylo vs. Nokia's 770 internet tablet.

"Neither Sony nor Nokia have Microsoft at the top of their buddy lists, and their product lines don't contain much overlap; but the Japanese electronics giant enlisted the help of Nokia's longtime Scandinavian rival Ericsson when it made its serious push into the mobile phone space. Hence, it's easy to see how convergence often makes for strange competitors, and this year Sony's latest stab at it came in the form of the Mylo, which entered the WiFi-enabled portable connected media device alongside an updated software suite for Nokia's 770 internet tablet. While, on their surface, the products have many similar capabilities and share a price of $349, their form and philosophy are strikingly different."

You can read the full review at "Switched On: Pretty fly for the WiFi", keep up the great work Ross.

The Cloud’s Hotspots get internet-rate phone calls from Truphone. From any of The Cloud’s 7,500 public Wi-Fi hotspots in the United Kingdom allows for the latest generation of Wi-Fi equipped mobile phones to make low cost calls.

Truphone's free software enables Wi-Fi-equipped mobile phones to make internet-rate phone calls (VoIP calls) over Wi-Fi connections. When the phone is not in Wi-Fi range it reverts to being a normal mobile phone.

The Cloud has hotspots across the UK, including Europe’s largest public access Wi-Fi network in a business district at Canary Wharf, Manchester city centre, and the imminent City of London Wi-Fi zone. The Cloud is constantly adding new hotspots - recently it announced the addition of 232 Little Chef restaurants - and is a leader in providing public Wi-Fi access across the UK.

Dan Nystedt writes, 'Sales of PC-free Wi-Fi Skype handsets taking off'. "The Wi-Fi mobile phones are rousing interest for two reasons: the low cost of using Skype services to make calls, and because people can use them more like a traditional mobile phone, without the aid of a PC. Skype, for example, is offering the WSKP100 by SMC Networks Inc. in a package on its Web site that includes the handset, a Wi-Fi router, 500 minutes of calls to regular mobile phones and landlines (SkypeOut) and 12 months of Skype voicemail for just £99 (US$196)."

Broadcom Corporation, announced that the Broadcom Wi-Fi phone platform now supports Skype software and will be available to consumers in new Wi-Fi phone handsets from Buffalo. In the past, Skype users needed a PC to make Skype calls. Now, with the availability of wireless Internet phones, users can make calls at open Wi-Fi access points all over the world without being tied to a PC.

"A Wi-Fi phone is more flexible and useful than a traditional analog phone because it uses Internet Protocol (IP) as the underlying technology and can communicate with other devices on the network," said Monika Gupta, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Broadcom's Consumer VoIP products. "Consumers can now be part of the Skype community -- scroll through their contacts, see who is online, make free Skype-to-Skype calls -- all without sitting in front of the PC."

I came across this review by David DeJean of TechWeb on Netgear's Skype Phone Model SPH101 and found it to provide some helpful insight.

"Even though the Skype Voice-over-IP (VoIP) service lets you talk to other people just like you would on the telephone, it still requires a computer to make it work. However, a new generation of Skype handsets is changing all that. The Netgear Skype WiFi Phone gets you off your computer entirely: If you've got a WiFi network and this handset, you've got all the equipment you need."

As reported in Andy Abramsons VoIP Watch blog yesterday about Sony's Mylo and T-Mobile. "Interestingly enough, SONY has cut a deal with T-Mobile that begins in November which provides a years' free access at hotspots."

Upon further investigation I found, "Starting in mid-November 2006, mylo communication devices will get online access for no charge at more than 7,000 T-Mobile HotSpot locations in the United States, including many Starbucks coffeehouses, Borders Books and Music stores, FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Centers, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Sofitel and Novotel hotels, Red Roof Inn locations, the airline clubs of American, Delta, United and US Airways and select airports."

You will have to download mylo communicator that will allow the device to log into these T-Mobile hotspots at no charge to the user during the promotion. Mylo allows you to send instange messages with Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger when connected to a T-Mobile hotspot, or any 802.11b wireless network. It also comes pre-load with Skype software allowing you to make Internet calls.

Mylo Communicator is currently available online at sonystyle.com for $350 and at Sony Style retail stores and authorized dealers.

SMC Networks' WiFi phone for Skype will now be able to make Internet-based Skype phone calls when within range of a Cloud hotspot. When the calls are from another Skype users the calls are entirely free. However calls to fixed and mobile users will be at a substantially reduced cost of Skypeout minutes. The phone also provides its users with access to their Skype accounts and contacts.

"The Cloud currently has some 8,500 hotspots in the UK, Germany, the Nordic countries and The Netherlands. It also operates large scale networks across the City of London, Canary Wharf, Amsterdam and seven other UK cities and two London boroughs."

iOpus, a provider of cost effective, cutting edge technology utilities that are both powerful and easy to use, announced this week that the iOpus Private Internet Gateway (iPig) will be available as a free beta product to consumers or end users worldwide, beginning today at Digital Life 2006. iPig is downloadable from the company’s website at http://www.iopus.com/ipig/download.

For Generation Y -- which is more than 70 million strong -- passing notes and pen pals have been replaced by instant messaging and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. And as wireless access to the Web expands around the country -- with more than 41,000 Wi-Fi sites nationwide, it's growing faster than cell phone networks did. And now there's a new way to connect to the web, and your friends using Wi-Fi with Sony's mylo personal communicator. This device allows you to send instant messages with Google Talk instant messaging service and Yahoo! Messenger. Registered Skype users can use the mylo communicator to make free Internet calls with the 113 million other Skype users. The embedded HTML browser lets you connect to full Web pages on the Internet and send and receive text emails with web mail services.

This week at WiMAX World in Boston, ZyXEL Communications Inc., a leading provider of secure broadband networking, Internet connectivity and routing products, will announce the latest addition to their WiMAX product line with the MAX-200H and MAX-300 broadband gateway customer premise equipment (CPE). ZyXEL is the first to market with an all-in-one solution based on the IEEE802.16e-2005 standard that combines WiMAX, Wi-Fi, VoIP and security in a single box.