TOSHIBA MAKES ITS OWN ENTERPRISE EFFORT

It has been two years since notebook PC-maker Toshiba exited the Wi-Fi hot spot business — and about 10 months since the company said it planned to instead create an enterprise networking service designed for the users of its notebook PCs — but last week Toshiba's digital products division launched that service with a roster of 50,000 public broadband access points through GoRemote, its network aggregator partner.

The division of Toshiba America Information Systems, which issued its first mass-market laptop PC 20 years ago, announced MyConnect Enterprise, a service that Raja Narayanan, vice president of mobility solutions for the digital products division, referred to as “a data-only MVNO.” The company is offering access plans with corporate virtual private network support and other features for a monthly charge of $20 to $40.

MyConnect network coverage through GoRemote includes more than 350 ISPs and more than 50 wireless providers with access in analog dial-up, Wi-Fi and public broadband access points in more than 150 countries. However, Narayanan said the GoRemote partnership is not exclusive and that Toshiba is already looking forward to adding 3G mobile broadband to its access menu sometime next year. “We're already talking to carriers about partnering to support 3G access for MyConnect,” he said. “We like the capabilities that will be available through EV-DO Revision A.”

MyConnect competes directly against other remote networking services like iPass and the offerings of telcos and other broadband service providers. But, the service eventually could pose a more direct threat to voice providers. Narayanan said Toshiba, in the long term, wants to transcend the “data-only MVNO” tag by offering voice over IP to its MyConnect users. “We are already seeing some price commoditization in Wi-Fi access, and we want to move up the value chain to offer VoIP,” he said. “We were motivated to get into this business by the lack of service providers addressing the fundamental problems of users. We also thought it would translate to more notebook sales.”

Toshiba has addressed the remote networking market before, with its Surfhere Wi-Fi hot spot business, which was acquired by Cometa Networks in 2003, just months before Cometa folded.