Networking This Week: Get Unwired And Go To Jail

This week was showtime again, this time around, the CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans. And that meant a week of heavy-duty wireless and mobile announcements, both at the show, and away from it as well.

High-speed wireless junkies have something to look forward to: Wireless infrastructure vendors at the CTIA show demonstrated next-generation cellular data systems with speeds approaching 6 Mbps, even though 3G services haven't even been fully rolled out.

AT&T, meanwhile, announced it will build a small WiMAX trial this spring and then later in the year roll out a larger trial with several enterprise customers. Other telecom vendors, including Sprint, have also said they will run WiMAX as well.

Frequent fliers got some good wireless news, when Lufthansa airlines announced that it will significantly expand in-flight broadband service to more long-haul flights.

Kyocera became the latest vendor to jump onto WiFi/cellular convergence, with an announcement at the show that it will team with Boingo Wireless to let its handsets to seamlessly switch between cellular and Wi-Fi networks.