Wireless Freenets As The Parasitic Grid

Lester67 writes: "Infoworld has a pretty cool article on the "the Parasitic Grid," which is basically people (mainly in large cities) opening up their high-speed access through 802.11b to anyone that wants to use it, and how it may threaten telecom profits. One guy has a pretty interesting use for a Pringles(tm) can too (but only after you've removed your hand)." This article ties together several of the recent stories on free-for-all community networking, and fits in nicely with the recent post on bridging networks with 802.11b.

Comments

Washington Square Park/NYCWIRELESS.NET

[toupsie]

Just last night I took my TiPB (Apple Titanium Powerbook) to Washington Square Park (NYU Campus) and hooked into the NYCWireless free 802.11b network (link) at the northeast end of the park using my AirPort card. This was the first time I tried out one of these "Parasitic Grids". I was quite impressed. Sitting out on the grass (ignoring the guys selling grass), I was surfing Slashdot, downloading updates to Fink and chattin' with my friends on IRC. I was quite impressed with the speed of my connection (about 36kps) and my ability to roam from spot to spot in the grass in order to hear the guy playing violin better. Being able to take my computer into the great outdoors, tuning into a free wireless network and getting work/fun done to me has to be one of the best advancements in computers yet. Now the computer does not dictate the environment it works in, I do.

On a side note, any coffee shop that wants to kick Starbuck's ass ought to buy a cheap DSL line/Cable modem and hang a 802.11b base station and give away free bandwidth for the cost of a $4.95 mocha carmel frappa latte skim half-caf double-decaf cappachino.