New York triple-play telecommunications provider Cablevision announced that it has completed the initial phase of its municipal Wi-Fi coverage for the Nassau and Suffolk county areas in Long Island.

The company first announced its Optimum Wi-Fi plans in May, with a two-year deployment schedule that will eventually comprise much of the New York tri-state area. This leg of the rollout appears to have been designed around the Long Island Railroad system, with station stops along a number of lines receiving connectivity first. Cablevision had previously set up "Wi-Fi Community Zones" in the Bridgeport and Port Jefferson ferry stations, and also in commercial areas Sag Harbor, Northport and Huntington.

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The newest Wi-Fi protocol, 802.11r, which has become the de facto "Wireless VoIP standard", is now a published standard of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards board.

802.11r has been in the works since 2004, with the express purpose of developing a Wi-Fi connection that can quickly pass between access points. A go-ahead for publishing the final draft of the standard was given by the 802.11r task group last January.

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Three of American Airlines' routes out of New York will get in-flight Wi-Fi: Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. The service will be available on all Boeing 767-200 planes in the fleet.

Starting Wednesday, AA's new Gogo service will be available to customers, and will be run by aviation telecommunications company Aircell. Passengers will pay $12.95 for access during flights longer than three hours.

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For the second time, free wireless Internet at the carrier's hotspots including Starbucks was set to become a reality for AT&T iPhone customers; again, the carrier has pulled the offer.

The first time this happened was in late April. While it was not advertised, many iPhone users were able to access AT&T's network through hotspots without having to pay an additional fee or log in. However, the company later relocked those hotspots.

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A court in the country has ruled that Internet users who are victims of Wi-Fi theft cannot be held responsible for illegal P2P activity if it occurs as a result of that incident.

The development could lend support to efforts elsewhere to clear victims of any liability when it comes to copyright infringement. The argument that router owners are indeed liable, has been used by Davenport Lyons in its work with the industry in the UK.

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Motorola today unveiled a new 5-megapixel camera brought to market with the aid of Kodak, with emphasis shifted to the built-in camera and away from the features on the phone itself.

During an official event hosted in Beijing, Motorola introduced the MOTOZINE ZN5 -- the first device in a newly created line of phones optimized for multimedia.

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The company announced Friday it's ending service in most of the areas it served, including major cities in California, Oregon, and Illinois, becoming the latest casualty of the muni-Wi-Fi bubble.

A message on MetroFi's Web site today indicated the company was dropping both its free and premium services effective Friday for the cities of Concord, Cupertino, Foster City, and Sunnyvale in California, and Naperville, Illinois. Remaining under MetroFi control, if only for the time being, are wireless networks in Riverside, Calif. and Aurora, Ill.

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In a stunning announcement, the city of Philadelphia said that it had reached a deal with a group of private investors to keep its wireless network alive and free.

Although details are still being worked out, free wireless access will be available to Philadelphians as of today. The system will be reassessed over the the next few months along with a formal roll-out later this year.

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SanDisk could be considering offering customers of its Wi-Fi enabled music players a method to download music directly to players, if its latest acquisition is any indication.

SanDisk's Sansa Connect is the company's signature Wi-Fi enabled player, which allowed for Yahoo Music Unlimited downloads wirelessly. With that service now defunct and users being transferred to Rhapsody, the company is likely looking to fill that hole.

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In a variation of a plan it previously shot down, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed that the winner of a newly planned spectrum auction be required to offer free wireless Internet service.

The FCC's proposal essentially sounds similar to a suggestion made last year by M2Z Networks, the first company to suggest free wireless Internet nationwide. The free wireless network would be required to cover half of the country's citizens within four years, and 95 percent within a decade. FCC officials told the Wall Street Journal that content restrictions would be placed on use.

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A group in New Mexico now wants to ban the use of certain types of wireless networks in the public buildings of Santa Fe.

Self-identified EHS sufferers in New Mexico claim that that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) stemming from Wi-Fi spawn headaches and a veritable witches' brew of other ills that are forcing them out of libraries and other public places.

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iPhone users aren't the only ones who will get free access to AT&T's 17,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, as the company is also opening the doors to its 3G customers signed up for LaptopConnect plans. But the offer has one catch: it requires Windows.

AT&T recently signed a deal to power the Wi-Fi networks at all Starbucks and Barnes and Noble locations, boosting its hotspot number by 7,000. As part of the agreement, it decided to grant iPhone users free access to its network. AT&T is the exclusive iPhone carrier in the United States, giving it an incentive to support those users.

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After scrapping its citywide Wi-Fi deployment project for Portland, Oregon, municipal wireless company MetroFi is planning to liquidate its network assets or close down entirely.

In addition to Portland, MetroFi has free, ad-supported networks in place in Concord, Cupertino, Foster City, Riverside, San Jose, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale, California as well as Aurora, Illinois. In a private e-mail from MetroFi CEO Chuck Haas to Wi-Fi Networking News editor Glenn Fleischman, he says if no buyers turn up for these networks, his company will gradually shut them down.

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The Mayor of Philadelphia has indicated that he will not use city funds to keep the Earthlink wireless network running in the city.

While Mayor Michael Nutter told the Philadelphia Daily News earlier this week that they are far from finished with having discussions with EarthLink, the city won't spend money to save the Wi-Fi network.

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EarthLink attempted to give Philadelphia a deadline of last Thursday to hand over control of its municipal wireless network in order to shut it down gracefully, however the city has so far pushed back the effort.

Wireless Philadelphia, the non-profit group tasked with management of the network, said that the service continues to operate across the city. It argues that EarthLink has no right to set any type of deadline for a handover, or shut the network off.

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