If you plan on attending Coffee Fest in Seattle on November 9-11, WEBbeams would like to offer you free admission. To get your tickets, please contact Ericka at 888.WEBbeams, ext. 6000 or erickarodriquez@webbeams.com by October 15. We’ll be exhibiting at table top 11, so stop by and say hi. To find out more about Coffee Fest, visit www.coffeefest.com.

A recent report by the Burton Group claims corporations have been moving quickly to Wi-Fi, enabling employees to use laptops, various mobile applications, and VoIP. According to Burton Group analyst Paul DeBeasi, “IT professional should start thinking now about how they will deploy, maintain, and benefit from an all-wireless LAN.” It seems laptop-carrying employees are now pushing their companies to offer the same convenience in office that they’ve been experiencing for years in hotels, coffee shops, and airports.

Mahabir Pun, who won a 2007 Ramon Ragsaysay award (learn more at www.rmfa.org), wrote an article this month about his rural Wi-Fi project in Nepal. The article discusses his approach to bringing Wi-Fi to Nepal with the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, as well as the goals and objectives for this initiative. Read more online at The Nepal Monitor.

With the U.S. moving completely from analogue to digital television signals after the new year, a group of technology companies has launched the White Space Coalition, a group hoping to turn those old TV signals into a nationwide high-speed Wi-Fi network. The group, which includes Microsoft, Google, Dell, Hewlett Packard, and Phillips Electronics, has already created a device can use part of the old transmission system to transmit Wi-Fi signal. Reports have suggested that download speeds could be at least 80 megabits per second, about eight times faster that what most people have in their homes today. Currently, the group is awaiting approval from the FCC, which has expressed concerns that the Internet signals may interfere with TV signals and cordless phones. The National Association of Broadcasters, nervous about the prospect of losing marketshare to people who would prefer to get phone and television service through the Internet, has launched a campaign to criticize the White Space Coalition’s plan.