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First National 802.11b ISP

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the they'll-never-make-it-to-me dept.

JScarpace writes "The chairman and founder of Earthlink, Sky Dayton, will introduce his newest company today, a wireless ISP called "Boingo" which will resell 802.11b access being provided by smaller ISPs around the country. Sky hopes to build up Boingo the same way he built up Earthlink -- by buying or partnering with enough smaller providers to offer a national service." An overdue idea and a stupid company name. Course it'll never get to me... the downside of living in the sticks. Those of you in real cities may be one step closer to the dream. update yup, another duplicate. Pre coffee story posting should be forbidden. Ah well, maybe the flamers will get it out of their system early ;)

4 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Dream? by saintlupus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    one step closer to the dream.

    ...of sniffing all of my neighbor's traffic, rather than just that of the ones with enough money to buy their own access point.

    Security seems it would be an issue with this sort of setup. Anyone know how he's handling it?

    --saint

  2. Sticking it out in the sticks by sporktoast · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Course it'll never get to me... the downside of living in the sticks.
    I thought that was what the thrust of this article was. Something about it being easier to do in the sticks, what with a more predictible customer base, personal contact and service for clients, not having to ramp up to a HUGE base so quickly, ability to front-load all the investment costs, etc..
    --
    In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.
  3. More Strength for 802.11b by carlhirsch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If this takes hold in a big way, I'm having a hard time imagining people adopting 802.11a outside of the enterprise space.

    802.11b seems suffficient for most applications which might have a net pipe upstream rather than direct local connections to servers.

    I expect we won't see people using 802.11a equipment to take advantage of the promised 54Mbits (more like 10 to 25 in practive and at a shorter range than 802.11b) until the 802.11g spec gets finalized. 802.11g will create a compatibility layer between 802.11a and 802.11b, which occupy seperate spectrum space.

    -carl

    --
    . We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
  4. Small town != bad access by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I currently live in a city of 250,000, and my broadband choices are ISDN and cable. Fortunately, I happen to live inside the small radius of digital-ready cable service, so I have decent connectivity.

    I'm getting ready to move to a small city in Nebraska, and my access options are completely amazing (to me, at least). Fifty dollars will get me 512k wireless or 640/272k DSL, both with static IPs and unfiltered inbound traffic. I was afraid that I'd be stuck with a 26400 dialup, but I'm actually getting a good upgrade for less money.

    Living in a small town doesn't have to mean losing service, as I'm pleasantly discovering.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?