Free WiFi & more things

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Will 5G Kill Free WiFi? | Motherboard – all I am going to point out here is that Intel backed WiMax versus LTE for 4G. Intel has consistently had issues in the wireless space. The use cases between 5G and free WiFi are likely to be very different. The potential low latency of 5G will be attractive in certain use cases. I don’t think it will be a consumer product for a while yet due to network build out issues in comparison to free WiFi (or the paid variety. More wireless related content here.

EU Deepens Antitrust Investigation Into Google’s Practices | WSJ – its telling that a US commenter claims this is economic warfare and they might have a point…

Phone numbers may start with ‘unlucky’ 4 and 7 as Hong Kong mobile demand outstrips supply | South China Morning Post – not terribly surprising when you have seen the phones are mounted on the dashboards of taxis by drivers participating in virtual motor pools. Hong Kong has had a reputation for the average consumer being ‘over-phoned’ and this is a consequence of it.

The Future of Developing Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Add-ons Blog – really interesting changes going on Firefox that is going to break popular plug-ins

Piece Lets Your Phone Dual-Wield SIM Cards | Technabob – interesting idea, a slave phone. Though I could imagine mobile carriers viewing it more like a GSM gateway.

From The Register:

GSM gateways were common features of the 1990s and early 2000s telephone landscape. At the time, phone companies charged eye-wateringly high sums for overseas calls. In those dreary pre-Skype and pre-WhatsApp days, if you wanted instant contact with loved ones the phone was your only option. GSM gateways themselves, banks of SIM cards, worked a bit like a modern VPN does for an internet connection: you call the gateway, then once connected you enter the overseas number you want to be connected to. Government officials have claimed they frustrate surveillance by spy agencies and others because identifying caller data is not forwarded through the gateway, making it difficult to eavesdrop on a particular call going overseas.

Fjord – Living Services Report – interesting report from Fjord on dynamic digital services

EU Deepens Google Antitrust Investigation | WSJ – (paywall)