Bzeek – Bridging the WiFi Gap

in Mobile News by Yohay Elam — April 16, 2010 at 8:29 pm | 4 comments

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When traveling, the internet isn’t always as accessible. But at home, we enjoy a wide bandwidth that is hardly utilized. Bzeek, an Israeli startup offers to bridge this gap with an interesting solution. Here’s a review.

Bzeek sees WiFi as the solution for getting the web everywhere: the company’s software creates an access point on a computer that has internet access but doesn’t consume all the available bandwidth. According to Elad Barkan, the founder, we usually consume only 5% of the available bandwidth. While there are some people who have an urge to download all the latest episodes from the latest TV series, most of us consume only a small fragment of the most modest ISP package.

Users of Bzeek that share their internet connection with the world open a network called “Bzeek Free WiFi”, that anyone can use. They get paid for this service. Bzeek, still in beta phase, has a built-in firewall that protects the computer and separates the hosting computer from the network, so that those generous users can feel more comfortable. The bandwidth shared with the world is taken from the unused bandwidth and isn’t supposed to slow down the local connection, although this needs to be tested on a high load.

Mobile phones or other devices in need for internet are on the other side of the spectrum – they can surf the web by connecting to this WiFi network and.

All in all, this simple technology bridges the gap between the “rich” computers which have unused bandwidth and with the “hungry” devices that don’t have the means. As aforementioned, this technology is still in beta phase. As its distribution grows, the speed and the security could be challenged, but the direction sounds quite promising.

Elad Barkan, founder of Bzeek, will give a speech at one of the most important telecommunications conferences: eComm - Emerging Communications Conference and Awards. If you’re in San Francisco, we might be able to help you with reduced or free access.

Barkan will speak about the future of mobile networks, which see a huge leap in usage, but no leap in revenue. This leap began with the iPhone, and was followed by many other devices, as well as mobile broadband modems / Bluetooth abilities  attached to laptops.

Barkan brings some numbers: “AT&T wireless data usage has increased 5000% in 3 years, and it appears to be just the beginning. Even worse, while usage is up 5000%, revenues not growing so fast – in fact – just 1% of this – or about 50% in three years – not enough to compensate it. AT&T is the first mobile operator to have the iPhone and still holds exclusivity for it in the US. AT&T’s current stock price is about the same as it was 4 years ago (after a huge rally in the between – I guess people did not understand how expensive it is to deliver such amounts of data).”

We’ll follow eComm for more developments in this field. As seen also in ThinkNext, there’s a growing number of Israeli startups in the mobile scene. News from the eComm conference will be closely watched by mobile companies in Israel.

Read more about Bzeek at The Wadi index.

Tags: bzeek ecomm ecomm 2010 featured Mobile mobile services wifi