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Airwave uses unencrypted traffic, not WEP. As a previous poster noted, WEP requires a shared secret among users. There would not be much point to sharing a secret with your fellow coffee drinkers if your purpose is to keep them from reading your Business Plan.

As you point in in #1, it's not secure once it leaves the cafe anyway. If you are concened, use ssh or https or encryption in email for your business plan anyway.

And get a pair of those glasses with mirrors on the front so you can make sure nobody is looking at your laptop screen either!

And to bring everything but the CueCat into this, I got mail from Airwave saying that their DSL in the local cafe here used NorthPoint.

Sounds cool. I'm here at UC Davis; that's about 20 minutes away by car for you non-locals ;), and the only 802.11b we have is in the library. That's changing. The Mech/Aero Engr bldg is getting 802.11 and all the profs are getting laptops. It'd be even more cool if UCD/City of Davis were to install some 802.11 routers and repeaters throughout the city. That would be bad-ass. Since my SDSL is getting turned off due to the NorthPoint thing.

I'll miss my 9ms ping to Palo Alto, and 15ms ping to skool. :(
Verio seems to be giving up on my service, but NorthPoint says it will try to funding from other ISP's to keep it going
Why don't the ISPs buy them out and make a cooperative, similar to thing planned for Iridium satellites?

Here's my 2 cents. 1, 2.

I am disappointed that my service will now probably die.

History

I signed up with Phoenix Networks in April of 2000. They are/were a St. Louis-based ISP contracting with Northpoint for SDSL circuits with a static IP for reasonable prices. I received 768/384 for $40/mo., and the throughput on my circuit was always satisfactory.

Delivery of the circuit required USWest (now QWest) to do their part and bring me a new pair to my house and they did dawdle, but after that, the install was seamless and my circuit met my expectations.

Northpoint offered a rebate program at the time of sign-up. I never received that rebate, though I am not too concerned about that. What bothered me was a few months after becoming a PhoenixDSL/Northpoint customer, I found out that Phoneix went under. Their service was maintained/acquired by Megapath, who retained the business clients and spun the residential customers to Telocity. Several months later, Telocity has yet to send me the hardware they say I "need" to use to access their service, and billing seems to be up in the air. I thought about leaving their stable for Megapath or QWest but decided to wait things out since Telocity has recently been made a subsidiary of Hughes Corporation, the muscle behind DirecTV/PC and I am intrigued by potential bundled packages.

Through all this, my service has been reliable. I marvel that any industry can maintain viability with such turmoil, let alone leave my connection solid and intact. I am happy my service still works (knock^2), yet realize what has been a good ride shall now come to its close and I must begin shopping.

maybe I am dumb, but aren't the customer accounts counted as assets? so wouldn't the customers become AT&T customers?

But that is not what I get from their website.

Looks like they are mostly hardware, at least according to the AT&T press release.

Some business managers can be so dumb.

I'm not really sure. I'm at UofT, living in Toronto. I know that around here, and around Waterloo, there are a number of options available. I did a Google search and came up with NorthPoint DSL and DSL Inc.. NorthPoint claims to have "national" service, but I don't know if that means the whole country or just "Toronto, and Scarborough also."

I use IDSL (it's all I can get--PAC BELL SUCKS) from NorthPoint through InternetConnect and it's fine.

I am getting IDSL from Northpoint / PhoenixDSL in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. I am paying $40 per month for a static IP, domain hosting, and all the usual ISP amenities.

They guarantee a minimum of 128 Kbps (typical for IDSL), but I usually run at 130 to 135 Kbps. That translates into 16 to 17 K / sec in the browser. I know it's not the greatest, but it is a distinct improvement over my previous 26.6 Kbps limit. (Damn you, whoever invented the multiplexer.)

From initial order to final installation was twelve weeks. However, I don't blame Northpoint for this; Ameritech (the local telco) is notorious for its poor service.

Installation, router, and first two months service were free, thanks to a mid-summer promotional offer.

All in all, I'm satisfied. I knew installation would take a while, so the trick was to order it and forget about it. That way, when it finally arrived, it was a pleasant surprise.

You can get DSL service from the Incumbent LEC (Local Exchange Carrier), USWest... erm, Qwest, as well as from Competitive LEC's such as Covad NorthPoint, or Rhythms.

Separately, you have a choice of ISP. IMO, there are only two choices. VISI has really good deals on multiple static IP's, but can't compete with Onvoy performance wise, because the former uses expensive Qwest (got it right that time) DSL, while the latter uses Covad.

Of course, there are dozens of different ISP options. Some are overpriced, some offer better speed, some offer better features... it's truly a competitive market out there.

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