wifi

The nation's biggest telephone companies want you to believe that soaring cell phone bills are in our future -- if their demands for more wireless bandwidth aren't met. Is this a clear signal of what's to come, or just a lot of static?

United Online's NetZero business is making headlines this week with a free 4G connectivity deal that isn't as free as it looks.

Active smartphone users better get used to an ugly buzzword: throttling. AT&T has begun slowing down the most voracious 5% of its data users. And while cell carriers may feel they have to push back against the bandwidth hogs, the customer response may be more than they bargained for.

The motto of this year's Consumer Electronics Show: You can't be too fast, too skinny or too connected. Beginning Tuesday, anorexic HDTVs and super-skinny laptops will vie for attention with accelerated WiFi devices and TVs that smartly connect to multiple devices simultaneously.

Take me up to the ball game -- thanks to a new offering from broadband provider Row 44, baseball fanatics won't have to miss one tobacco spit or big hit while flying, because Major League Baseball will stream games to airline passengers' WiFi devices.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday proposed that the government auction off its portion of the wireless spectrum to private companies to boost access to high-speed Internet and cut the federal budget deficit.

The Federal Communications Commission has granted permission for nine companies, including Google, to turn unused broadcast frequencies -- also known as "white spaces" -- into wireless broadband.

Those irritating fees aren't going away, but over the next few years, some of them will be attached to new a la carte services that travelers may be happier to pay for. Think personal concierge services, intercity rail ticket sales -- and even in-flight spa treatments.

In a move to help it target tablet computers, cell-phone-chip designer Qualcomm has reportedly offered $3.5 billion to buy Atheros Communications, which has developed chips that connect wireless computers to the Internet.

If you want to know how the rural developing world could get cheap, easy wireless Internet access, just follow the money: Remittances to those regions total tens of billions each year, and the money flow isn't very efficient. The profits from micro-telcos taking over the business could prime the pump for an information revolution in the hinterlands.