Marvell announced today at the International CES 2008 trade show, the Marvell TopDog 11n-450, an 802.11n 3x3 WLAN solution with three spatial streams, the industry's first 802.11n chip operating at 450 Megabits-per-second (Mbps.) With maximum bandwidth more than eight times faster than 802.11g 54 Mbps versions and 1.5 times faster than current 802.11n 300 Mbps offerings, the new product will enable significant performance enhancements for notebooks and desktop PCs, printers, routers, set top boxes, digital TVs, gaming devices and DVD players and recorders. The TopDog 11n-450 provides 500 percent increased range over 802.11g, as well as 160 percent increased range compared to competing 802.11n solutions.

Seeking a new way to bring customers to McDonald's, McDonald's now is the proud owner of the largest free wireless internet provider in the United Kingdom. Every McDonald's restaurant within the United Kingdom will give their customers free access to wireless internet in the store. This is a vast improvement from the regular way to access wireless internet in the UK, which generally involves a contract/pay-as-you-go service, which can add up to 5 pounds per log-in. After the 1,200+ McDonald's restaurants all have free wireless internet, they will own 10% of all wireless coverage in the UK.

After releasing an entirely new lineup of iPods, Apple has also launched an iTunes Wi-Fi music store for the new iPod touch along with a new version of iTunes for customers to purchase ringtones for their iPhone. Customers must first pay $0.99 for a song from iTunes, then another $0.99 for the privilege of using that song as a ringtone. The new version of iTunes will include a utility to create ringtones based on any 30-second segment from a song complete with fade-in and fade-out. iPod touch owners will be able to use their Wi-Fi connection to logon to iTunes from any wireless hotspot to download individual songs or complete albums.

For more information, please visit Apple's Wi-Fi Music Store page.

This week is filled with WiFi news which is good i guess for all of us. So after the Uk and France Hong Kong decides to take WiFi a bit further down the road by outfitting its MTR with antennas.
"The service will first be introduced in station concourses and on platforms this summer. Wu Liang-tai, the company's executive vice-president for emerging technology, said putting it in trains for access on the go was the next step.A third-generation (3G) mobile-phone network allows users to connect to the internet on the move at speeds of 3.6 megabits per second. Wi-fi (wireless fidelity) gives users online access at 54 megabits per second, fast enough to watch videos on the internet. It costs HK$20 a day for unlimited access.
On trains, it would work with receivers at each end of the train picking up a 3.5G signal from transmitters in the tunnel. The Wi-fi network will give users access to the internet through Wi-fi-compatible devices such as laptop computers and mobile phones.

"Wi-fi is much cheaper than 3G for internet access, so we can deliver our content to users when they are on MTR trains," Dr Wu said on the sidelines of a telecoms conference in Beijing.

A new and free Wi-Fi service launched in Paris during opening hours at 105 municipal buildings and parks. The service uses Alcatel-Lucent base stations is run by SFR and it will be extended to 400 hotspots by September according to projections. The service required a 2.5 million euros investment by the Ile-de-France region and municipal government, plus 500,000 euros in annual operating costs. Orange recently launched legal action arguing that city hall should not intervene in the telecommunications market and that it cannot manage a public telecommunications network unless all operators are allowed to use it.
Is it a coincidence that the same happened to the UK a couple of days ago ? :)