One of the bigger stories from last week’s CES was the Ultrabook. Whether or not you agree with the oft-repeated dialog that Ultrabooks are merely Macbook Air copies — and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – you probably feel it’s a good thing that the PC makers are trying hard to make better products.  Although I’m all for sharp design, lower weight, instant on etc, my own personal belief is that the PC world is somewhat missing the point with the current emphasis of the Ultrabook. The big picture isn’t about competing with Macs, it’s about the mass transition to mobile and how that affects the PC industry as a whole.

So, what’s my issue?  I think that the least important difference between notebooks and today’s mobile devices is weight, design, and instant on. Those are all things that the PC industry should have been working on anyway.  Even touch, which isn’t in evidence in the current crop of Ultrabooks but shows up in the roadmap, isn’t such as big of a factor given the rich interface of the PC.  No, to me the biggest issue is around connectivity and the constant availability of the network.

Think about it. Your smartphone is constantly available to add value, whether it’s in your hand or nestled in your pocket or bag.  Obviously it can announce a caller, but just as important it can perform background tasks such as syncing email, and it can alert you with reminders and notifications from the network.  Your notebook, on the other hand, undergoes a digital frontal lobotomy and sinks into a network isolation chamber as soon as you close the lid or move away from a WiFi connection.  Bridging the gap between the PC of today and the mobile world is much more about remaining useful, and relevant while we’re, well, mobile.

I want my next notebook to rest, but not sleep, and to be able to get me on the network automatically. It’s clear that most people don’t want to buy a cellular plan for their PC, but how about utilizing the enormous public WiFi network that’s already ubiquitous? That way I won’t be connected 100% of the time, but often enough as I walk down the street, grab a coffee, sit in the lobby of my hotel or hang out in the airport.  With a network connection my notebook can meet a smartphone halfway.  That’s an exciting step function into the mobile world and a compelling vision for all manner of devices which otherwise wouldn’t enjoy full time cellular connectivity.  That’s the Ultrabook I want to see!

One of the things that always frustrates me when I travel is the high cost of Internet access, especially at hotels. Oddly enough, it seems to be the premium hotels that charge extra for access, while the lower end chains give it away for free. I checked into a hotel near Heathrow Airport in London a few weeks ago and noticed that they had an “Executive Upgrade” which included Wi-Fi access and breakfast for $20. When I asked about the costs for Wi-Fi alone they told me it was $30. I guess the thinking there was that executives would be so dumb they’d need big help figuring out which one to choose!

Anyway, I went with the upgrade, but amazingly they warned me that I likely wouldn’t be able to actually access Wi-Fi from my room but I could certainly use it in the lobby. Now that’s great service. At least breakfast was ok.

It’s long been a bone of contention for many road warriors to pay high access fees when traveling. The all you can eat cellular data and Wi-Fi plans we have enjoyed at home suddenly rack up enormous roaming fees, and we encounter high price “session islands” like these hotels. Most of the time you don’t need access for long periods of time: just a quick sync of email, a VoIP call to the office or home, or wrangling with your flight operator’s website for non existent upgrades. To pay $10, $20, or $30 for that privilege is just plain maddening.

Recently Devicescape started a field trial of a new service we’re calling Devicescape One. It allows you to get access at a wide range of commercial Wi-Fi networks and pay by the minute. Devicescape One isn’t meant to replace your existing subscriptions or change your belief that Wi-Fi should be free. It’s there as a complement and an alternate to buying expensive session passes that are more than you need.

I had the chance to use Devicescape One on my last trip across Europe and a week later in Asia. It gave me access to several large networks which weren’t handled by roaming arrangements with my home Wi-Fi subscriptions. Even better I avoided using cellular data, where you pay by the KB instead of by the minute (one Outlook sync contained a 7MB Powerpoint presentation but it transferred in less than a minute!) For me, the minute by minute approach has broad appeal.

We’re running this Devicescape One field trial to check out the technology and assess the usage patterns and interest. There’s no guarantee that we’ll actually turn this into a real live service that costs our members anything, but it seems clear that this kind of scheme has its place and a partner of ours may like to use the capability.

Right now, we’re offering the trial to a limited set of Devicescape members. When you sign up we give you up to 120 minutes of Wi-Fi time. There is ZERO cost involved and no obligation. If you’re interested in joining the trial, you can sign up here. Note: you need to be an existing Devicescape member first.

The City of London, which for those not aware of it is an area also known as the square mile right in the heart of the capital, is now also a wireless hotspot. Wi-Fi service is free at the moment, courtesy of The Cloud and Nokia. You just need to sign up for credentials.

Once you have them, Devicescape should be able to get you online where you find one of the City of London hotspots.

Much like Gatwick Airport, Victoria train station has coverage from the three main providers here in the UK: BT Openzone, The Cloud and T-Mobile.

I was able to sit upstairs, outside the Wetherspoons pub, and get a connection to all three networks without any difficulty.

London Gatwick airport, south of the capital, has lots of Wi-Fi options. Coverage in the south terminal at the airport is provided by BT Openzone and The Cloud. Then you can see T-Mobile from some locations too (e.g. in Starbucks up stairs in The Village shopping mall)

The picture, by the way, is the Gatwick Express train which takes you directly from the south terminal at Gatwick to London Victoria train station in 30 minutes.

Here in the UK I discovered that in addition to T-Mobile, BT Openzone and The Cloud, Surf and Sip seems to have a good presence thanks to it being the Wi-Fi provider for Caffe Nero.

And since Devicescape already supported the Surf and Sip hotspots in San Francisco, both natively and through Boingo roaming, I was able to login automatically as soon as I walked through the door.

One side effect of having all the SAS flights out cancelled, including the one I was booked on at 8am to London, is that I spent a whole day in Arlanda airport. My laptop battery doesn’t survive that long, so finding at least one power outlet became a priority around 11am.

I found nowhere at all in terminal 5 where the power points were live, but a short walk into the Sky City area gets you to the East West cafe (towards the terminal 4 end of the area). This has a small seating area off the main walkway, at the back of which there was a power point that was live. Sky City has coverage for both Homerun and the Arlanda Airport wireless network, though at the back of the East West cafe the signals are pretty weak.

Going a little further, down the moving walkway/ramp into terminal 4, right in front of you is the Simply Coffee cafe/bar. This has power points under the bar seating around its outer edge, and also some on the sides of the columns where the sofa seating is. Down here, although I could see what Windows claimed to be strong signals from Homerun and the airport wireless, only the latter actually worked. I could not get associated to the Homerun network down here at all.

There were also a few more on the aircraft side of the security checks, though only the airport wireless service seems to be visible in the gate areas (despite finding a very prominent Telia access point hanging in the ceiling next to the gate I was leaving from.

I found three free Wi-Fi networks in Stockholm. One was an independent cafe, Café Edenborg, where there is both open Wi-Fi access and available power points for those battery recharge moments. The coffee was good too.

The next one was in a local burger chain called Max. I saw two Max locations during my stay, but could only detect Wi-Fi in one of them. The one where the Wi-Fi was present did have a sticker on the door though indicating that WLAN was available. At that location, the connection was open to the internet without any need to sign in, or even accept terms & conditions.

Finally, the most common of the free networks I found was SkypeZones. These free networks, which appear to be sponsored by Skype, are all over the city. They provide reasonably good strength outside on the street, and two networks: SkypeZones and SkypeZones_Phones. As with the other two networks, they are entirely open – no sign in page or terms and conditions page at all. I was able to surf the web, make Skype calls and even make SIP calls through VoiceStick at a number of these locations with no problem at all.

In every 7-Eleven store I found in downtown Stockholm there was a wireless network provided by Rover Rabbit. These had a very strong signal outside the store too (I believe that the dipole antenna over the doorway is in fact the Wi-Fi antenna, which would explain the signal quality!).

They are a pre-paid only provider, selling access in units of 1 hour, 24 hours or one month. Unlike most pre-paid services though they expire on calendar time after first use, irrespective of the amount of use.

These hotspots are now supported through Devicescape now – just enter the username & password from the scratch card, or, if you buy online, activate with your browser and use the random looking username/password from the popup window (your Rover Rabbit website username & password will not let you get online sadly).

Walking around downtown Stockholm on my first night there, I came across a McDonalds location where, in addition to The Cloud Wi-Fi service that is available in all McDonalds locations in Stockholm, there was also a FON access point visible.

I saw three or four FON access points around Stockholm, though I only managed to get connections to two of them using the N95 – the others were too weak for the N95 to associate with successfully.