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Starbucks Clashes With WiFi Hobbyists Over Airwaves
fobbman writes: "Portland Oregon's Pioneer Square (the heart of downtown) has had free WiFi access provided since February by Personal Telco, which is a local group of computer hobbyists. Now Starbuck's is planning on offering the same service on the same band in the same area for $29.95 a month, according to this story in the local fishwrap. Without regulation or licensing, and with WiFi growing, this could become a common problem."
What the hell is starbucks doing offering wifi?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
That city has a long history of politically correct kowtowing for any cause-of-the-month. It's run by ultraliberals for ultraliberals. So this doesn't surprise me one bit.
How to change a Starbucks T-Shirt into something filthy
Isn't there a law in the US of A that basicly (very basicly) says "If your charging for it/running it as a part of company infrustructure, then you need to change to fit in with the public free users" ??
I'm fairly sure that I've seen that somewhere...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Why does Starbucks get priority? The other network is there FREE as a PUBLIC SERVICE, plus it was there before the Starbucks (or at least their network). Sounds to me like the city should tell them to limit it to inside their shop or make them shut down.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Here is a link about using wireless mobile at Starbucks. Here is a Wall Street article about it, and a brief intro. Here's an article praising the idea.
...Microsoft.
They are branching out to places they shouldn't.
I wonder to what degree this article is an actual documentation of a dispute. According to the article, Starbucks didn't even know there was a conflict. The Personal Telco people just don't want to be forced off "their channel". It seems like this whole "news" article is just a sly advertisment for T-Mobile and Starbucks and their new partnership.
My other first post is car post.
Their whole business model is based on running out the competition and clustering their stores.
Generally they buy out old coffee houses, or promise the landlord of these existing cafes higher rent. Get an entire area filled with starbucks, then once the area is associated with coffee, they start closing up their shops, until they only need one in the area.
So it's only logical that they would take the same approach with WiFi.
Now, what we really need is free WiFi on the Max and the Portland Streetcar.
www.personaltelco.net, or portlandtelco.net if you're really an optimist ;-)
Starbucks Begins 'Phase Two'
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Obviously Starbucks can lose their shirts on this. Their opponents are more likely to actually know how to tweak their access points for higher output and swamp the signal. This has been discussed here before about raising the power of an Accesspoint. I would hazard to guess that boosting the signal to a coffee hack at $tarbucks means they will pour Espresso into the box. OPPS.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
strangely Their web page has no mention of any conflict. Just a "hooray, we made the paper" announcement.
This reminds me a lot of the way people used to step on each other during the CB radio boom of the mid seventies.
;-}
I wonder how long it will be before someone starts selling 100W 802.11 amplifiers
In fact, I have a friend who is trying to set up a similar friendly wifi network in my town, and when he approached the local University network administrator he was told flat out that if he "interfered" in "University network space" that he would be speaking to the University lawyers.
I know that Big Brother is our enemy in Slashdot, but it's hard to do anything constructive in unregulated space. Imagine the chaos if FM wasn't regulated.
Not only do they use shady practices against other coffee shops to dominate a market, they are now using those same shady tactics on computer users. Their owner is also an extreme supporter of Israel, so whenever you buy a cup of coffee there, you are helping to fund a nation that fires rockets into civilian apartment buildings. There are much better stores than starbucks, everyone should get their java elsewhere.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
The short of it is, Starbucks has practically nothing to do with TMobile's WiFi access. The managers and employees know next to nothing about the Internet access except for the fact that it exists, and that if customers want to use the access they should call up Tmobile. That's it, so don't jump down Starbucks throat over this.
Why Tmobile can't simply change their channel is beyond me; I imagine that nobody at Tmobile with any technical knowledge has been alerted to this yet.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Portland is great for all the new technology that's tested. We were the first market for Albertson's Webvan type service, and the first market where Safeway directly competed with them. Now while I really do enjoy these new services that are brought to us this starbucks "business venture" is pure crap. If you go to http://www.pdxwireless.org you'll get a another mapping of all the wireless network areas and more and more of Portland is being Wifi wired. Hopefully the hobbiests can either outpower the starbucks network, or starbucks can go open and public, but the chances are not even worth figuring.
I worked for a wireless ISP, and we had to deal with this all the time. The 11 channels of 802.11b are all there is to work with, and we would constantly have to dance around existing systems. At least, the players here know who they are up against.
If they can't resolve the frequency coordination, and it devolves into a shouting match, Starbuck's is gonna win. They will have access points located within their premeses (sp?) and will no doubt have the maxium legal power and antenna structures allowed by the FCC. If the private guys can punch thru that signal, they're doing it using illegal power levels or antennas.
Also, a corporate sponsored setup would have the potential to have a higher speed backbone in and out of the shop, and ultimately be able to provide better service than the free guys.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
http://www.tmobilebroadband.com
T-mobile is the company offering 802.11b access in most Starbucks and many airports.
Someone explain why this is a problem... If both parties use modern wireless technology, can't they just co-exist? Users will be free to connect to the free access point or buy a login for the Starbucks point. And they shouldn't render each other unusable no matter how close they are.
"These community-based wireless networks are wonderful, but these will never take the place of actual wireless systems deployed by carriers or companies such as T-Mobile," Ameri said.
They will exactly TAKE THE PLACE. What's left, is providing something special on that SHARED place. It will not take very long, when there's an international network of open gateways, and services that are provided commercially now (such as easiness to log-on anywhere you are). The share of the commercial companies will get smaller. IMHO, the commercial companies cannot provide much extra - they can do it first, but if it's useful these free services will adopt it.
Once they can license or otherwise guarantee the bandwidth, the situation changes. Like, if they can provide GPRS or some other means when the quality of the WiFi goes below certain limit (although I don't see any reasons why this could not be done by anyone else than the GPRS provider too) :)
(*note* this might be partly a troll, but I would still like to have comments on these :)
Why not use the standards that are available. IEEE 802.11 uses frequency hopping to eliminate this problem. I thought most of the wireless ethernet cards used this protocol anyway. Oh, well, I don't care. We don't even have Starbucks, we have to make our own coffee.
the people still hold the power. we can smash their windows once more.
A lot of WISPS (well, the ones that haven't fallen flat on their faces and gone the way of chapter 11) are moving to licensed spectrum. Oh well.
ASSHOLES!!!
I know, I did it again, but read this before starting the possessive possessive thread again :)
For those whining about no regulation... just how the heck would having to pay $200 million to get a spectrum licence help out people providing free wireless access? How are you going to recoup license fees, if you don't charge for service? I guess everyone should charge for service? I can't wait to set up my "toll sidewalk" outside your building, if there should be no such thing as free public access to resources...
I can see how it would help the people who want a barrier to entry against free competition in an area where they'd like to charge money... well "boo hoo". The air waves belong to the public, and the free service was there first, and all your paid customers can get service from the free service anyway. So Go Away, Please.
The way I see it escalating is this: the free service doesn't move and the paid service doesn't move and both services suck, so they both lose users, only the paid service loses money because of that, and the free service doesn't. Upshot: If you are the paid service, and you don't want to lose money... move. Case closed.
-- Terry
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed essid starbucks
udhcpc --interface wlan0
or
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed essid free
udhcpc --interface wlan0
For more efficient transmission, you can even program your access points to use different frequencies. There are twelve overlapping frequency bands used 802.11b, which provide for three or four completely independent networks.
Attempting to associate with a network named "Any" or "" will usually result in associating the network with the strongest signal, depending on your driver and card. This is also true in other operating systems.
Perhaps it's more of a plug than a disclaimer, but I should mention I'm involved in LANRoamer, an open source system that you can use to sell passers-by access to your wireless network and other participating networks.
WiFi is business magazine dumbspeak for 802.11
It's fairly easy to sidestep a signal, even many signals, regardless of strength.
First, you can change the polarity. horizontal vs. vertical. fixes most problems.
The other option is to switch from direct sequence to frequency hopping. I know it's slightly different, but it's all 802.11. Hell, you could even go 802.11a. There's many options people, you don't need to step on everyone's toes.
*i work at a small isp which is setting up wireless in several cities, it's all good.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
Each network would be belting out higher power than the others, with the total for four or five networks easily higher that the maximum RF fields permitted.
They solved this escalation problem by reading the standards and finding out that in a well specified system, like GSM, the mobile should randomly pick a signal if they are over a certain strength (unfortunately this is a greatly simplified view and why most telco's got it wrong and started a power war).
The same principals for mobile network selection were ported to CDMA systems in the US, so I presume it would also work with 802.11 if they had read any of the other telecommunications standards out there at the time.
Apologies to any people involved in 802.11 standardisation, but this is how it seems to me.
... that if you use the frequency indoors and don't bleed out, you can do whatever you want with it. All SB has to do is deny that their wireless signal works beyond the front door. I know...I know...it will bleed, but SB doesn't have to take responsibility for that, now do they. Look for this to be brought up during the sure-to-be-held hearings.
I know most of you are gonna go on about how Starbucks is evil and a bunch of other irrational bullshit, I thought I'd inject some common sense from somebody who lives by Pioneer Square:
"Representatives of Starbucks and T-Mobile owner VoiceStream said they were unaware of any other wireless Internet presence in the square and had no comment on Personal Telco's objection."
Let me tell you something about Pioneer Square: Nobody's walking around with wireless devices screwing around on the web. To tell you the truth, the only way you could have found out this service was even availble was a quick blurb on the news. It doesn't surprise me at all that Starbuck's didn't even know it was there. Heck, it was sheer chance that I even found out about it. I go by Pioneer Square nearly ever day, I can honestly say I have never ever seen anybody doing wireless stuff there. (Not saying they don't do it, just saying that it's not visible.) I don't think more than a handful of people are aware of the 802.11 cloud present there.
Now, Starbuck's is right there on the square. They could set up a nice little antenna (heck, they could probably just use a $150 gateway, serious.) and it'd work just fine. This has nothing to do with trying to wipe out another service like it, it's just geography, it's just a coincidence.
"Derp de derp."
Starbucks main interest in this is merely to prevent people from sitting around their retail stores and using their computers for free. This way, they get to charge everyone for the space, inside the retail stores that they will occupy during the time they are using their computers. Of course, the cup of overpriced, high-margin, beverages made with over-roasted beans, to me should be considered fair charge for rent/use of the space.
Of course, Starbucks has gotten used to making a very, ahem - overly generous share of the profits for a beverage - what is it, something like 1200% gross margins? - so, now, they're just doing what comes natural, taking another market segment over in which they can jack us all up for the convenience of using our own property, our computers, while inside their location.
It will probably become the case that they will use some sort of technology to over-ride the ability of Personal Telco to provide free access anywhere near a Starbucks location. Then, those who want to even go near the place will be forced to pay Starbucks a damn subscription fee just to try and use what they once where able to use for free. Starbucks will, essentially, highjack the air in and near their retail locations.
So, seems to me that if everyone who was smart about this and committed to maintaining free access, they would cluster as many free access points around every Starbucks as they can.
The next morning, the trailer manager arrives at work to discover the community service group has pushed the trailer down the street. So he runs them over again. This goes on for an extended period of time, during which no one is getting lemonade because the corporate jugs tipped over as the trailer ran over the card table which held the free jugs. Yet this goes on day after day with no end in sight.
It seems to me that the company is so bent on profit (from a market where the product to be sold is already free) it is willing to engage in a spending race with the non-profit, betting that the cash-strapped non-profit will go home if it can't distribute its product. Most non-profits would rather spend their money on something else if their efforts are for naught.
In this situation, I see one of two things happening:
- The non-profit makes use of its local connections to inform the local populace of the situation, and ask them to stop patronizing the corporation's other businesses until it stops trying to take away their free lemonade. The non-profit needs to make a point of explaining that the corporation wants to force consumers to pay for something that's already free.
- The international corporation lobbies Congress for a new law which effectively gives for-profit corporations sovereign squatting rights over non-profit entities. That's best for the economy, they will claim, because it creates jobs and keeps money circulating instead of stuffed under mattresses.
My money's on Starbucks paying a political action committee to lobby Congress to "do the right thing for the economy in these troubled times" and "bring order to the wild Wi-Fi frontier."From what I've read, this apprears to be the deal here:
- PTP was there first, and has a far superior connection (Dual T1's vs. T-mobile's satellite connection)
- For some reason, T-mobile refuses to occupy a different channel.
- Everyone's connection sucks now because of the clash.
The longer version of this can be found on Omega Hacker's comment.
I just wanted to drop in my 2 cents that this is very foul of them to do. Portland is such a great place for the outdoors and computing that it's completely counterproductive and unnecessary for them to wreck a beautiful merging of the two. It's a great place to read, and I've been hoping for the day when I'll be able to work on a notebook comp there. I can't help but think of magnificent pranks that the green and white mandatory tourist stop could use to accomodate this action.
You can just say "you can't more then X radio stations" and be done with it. In fact, that was the way things used to be until the telecom 'deregulation' act of 1996. Interestingly, this clear channel shit didn't start until then...
No regulation means no monopolies, but so does 'good' regulation. The problem is all this 'deregulation' stuff isn't actually deregulation, but rather changing the regulations in order to let greedy people game the system for $$, usually at the expense of other people.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
At my last place of residence, I had WiFi net access (though, we called it 802.11b at that time...).
The company providing this service had constructed a rather large (several hundred feet large, dwarfing an AT&T microwave relay station a few hundred yards down the road from it) tower near my house.
I guess I should mention that the landscape around here is flat. Like a ruler. And completely devoid of obstructions.
I had no trouble at all getting 500 kBps downloads using the Aironet 350 AP and Pringles can-looking antenna they provided and installed from this massive tower 2.1 miles away.
The point of this text? They cover, probably with some degree of success, a very significant portion of Northwest Ohio with just ten of these towers.
Cell phones don't get that kind of range.
And even -handheld- cell phones are good for up to for 600mW of output (in the US, per FCC rules). The Aironet is about half of that.
Old-school bag phones had output of up to 3W. Which -might- have been as good as Comwavz -appears- to be doing with plain old 802.11b.
I never got rain fade, or snow fade, or any fade at all while I used it, even when conditions rendered visibility to zero. My microwave didn't phase it, and waving my 2.4GHz spread spectrum Uniden cordless phone directly in front of the antenna didn't make any measurable dent in latency. An arc welder used directly below the antenna didn't make a difference, either.
Things worked almost as well after an hour or two of sustained 50-70MPH winds kicked the loosely-mounted antenna so that it was at 90 degrees to the aforementioned towering wonder of bandwidth - the least efficient way I can imagine for that type of antenna to work.
I was able to also communicate -directly- with a few other of their customers. Those which I was able to identify were often several miles away, none with antennas pointed at mine (nor mine at theirs). Speeds were slow in this ad-hoc arrangement, sometimes in the range of 30kBps, but often were on par with my (current) 2Mbit cable modem.
I am led to wonder, thus, precisely what the problem is. It seems to be a remarkably durable way to communicate, and I have difficulty believing that Starbucks, of all places, can put a dent in anything controlled by people with motivation to make it continue working.
(I did have some downtime, once or twice, but each time that happened I was able to use binoculars to spot a guy wearing a toolbelt, jacking his way up that towering steel phalus. I attributed the temporary loss of bandwidth to safety of his (obviously brass) balls, not to any enviromental or interferance issues.)
Kid-proof tablet..
A little off topic but relevant to above post....
When you have people using FM spectrum for free you get a much wider variety of music played by people who really care. No ads, and no endless soft rock (unless the DJ wants to play soft rock...)
check out Pirate Radio for more.
[Please type your sig here.]
And yes, the story acknowledges that even with a shared channel it works... but only very slowly.
Idiot moderators. Throw a few out-of-context buzzwords around, and you move up to +5 Informative.
is that all Starbucks would have to do is switch which channel they're using at their access point.
-Argh! in pdx
I read the article, and I'm wondering how Personal Telco can afford to provide access to two T1's for free. Last I heard, that kind of high-quality bandwidth still doesn't come cheap.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
No regulation does *not* mean no monopolies. Take the radio waves example. No regulation would mean it would be legal to stomp on a small competitor by just overriding his radio signal on his frequency with your own, using a more powerful transmitter.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Everyone is saying no I was there first. You know T-Mobile is not going to do anything. Personal Telco should do the friendly thing and just move to a different channel. What channel your on makes no difference in how long it takes to get a link anyway. At leastr that's been my experience.
Gorkman
Not being American (thank god) this may already exist without my knowing, although I doubt it... The answer to this problem, before it gets out of control, is to regulate the airspace. Have it, or a portion of it, officially designated public (ie not commercial) airspace. Then the commercial enterprises can duke it out with each other without tromping on public services
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
As a possible demo, get a load of your mates (the worse at singing the better) and pop down to starbucks all ready to share there air waves with a bit of live ?singing? and see how they like it.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
and the statement on the bottom of the unit says it all... 1. You may not cause interference to licensed services. 2. You must accept any interference received including that which causes undesired operation. Trust me... you don't want the FCC getting involved with licensing this spectrum! That would mean that 99% of the units currently in service would be off the air....
Locate a few nodes Personal Telco Nodes right next to the Starbucks so the signal can't get out - they will get the message real fast then.....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
.... he says as he gets modded "Troll" for making a comment critical of Israel
T-Mobile owner Voicestream
Err... no. T-Mobile is the cellular branch of Deutsche Telekom, which bought Voicestream last year. So T-mobile owns Voicestream.
Do you know what CB (Citizen's band) is? If not, tune into the lower half of 27 Mhz AM. Wifi is CB for data Get it? Short range, unlicensed data transmission. Would I use it for anything mission critical? No way. Let me give you an example: When CB first arrived in the 60's, taxi services bought it for dispatching. They abandoned it after a few years because the interference made it unreliable. Is it a waste of spectrum? I don't think so, even though as a ham I lost the 11 meter ham band to CB. Same with wifi.
Will Personal Telco have to move again after the next commercial service comes along? How many times do they have to move until there are no more channels to move to?
Channels are finite and this is an unlicensed spectrum anyone can use. Both parties have to live with that. Starbucks/T-Mobile was just stupid by not planning better. It isn't hard for a planning engineer to whip out the WiFi and just check to see what's there on what channel.
It would be smart for Starbucks to move over to another channel. Surely there will be fewer users of their service than of the free one, so they can certainly offer a service based on better bandwidth availability.
But this won't last long. The spectrum is limited, and there is no licensing or frequency coordinators to manage it. Part 15 rules include the fact that users are subject to interference from other legal users, including microwave ovens. Basing a paid service on such rules is foolhardy. But one direction is that it's success could be used to get the FCC to open more spectrum, and a licensing structure, for just such kinds of services. It will probably have to be on all new spectrum, perhaps up at 10 or 24 GHz.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I am consistantly amazed (im easily entertained) by the popularity of WiFi. 11mbit seems relatively slow, the distance seems limited, the spectrum limited, and the security also seems limited (although, it doesn't have to be). Despite these setbacks, I hear WiFi storys day in and day out. Now, if I can just get a super booster antena, stick it out my 6th floor door window, and have campus wide coverage, ill be happy :P
What is making WiFi so popular? Incredible price reduction?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Replace "lemonade stand" with "operating system".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) is a direct sequence spread spectrum system--not a frequency-hopping system. The signal is spread, then placed on a fixed channel--one of the 14 available. As mentioned above, however, only 11 are legal to use in the U.S. and, of these, only three don't overlap.
The confusion probably arises from the original 1 Mb/s IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard, which actually had three physical layers--Direct sequence spread spectrum (on the same channels as Wi-Fi), frequency hop spread spectrum (on 79 channels between 2402 and 2480 MHz in the U.S.), and infrared (IR).
The value in using Channel 1 for a direct sequence system is entirely due to the law of unintended consequences--most WLAN software does a simple channel scan from the bottom to the top of the band, and T-mobile wants to be discovered first. Had the software designers realized the built-in marketing advantage they were giving to Channel 1, and the ensuing free-for-all that would result, they might have randomized the search, to give all channels equal access.
Interesting how much economic effect can result from a computer language syntax feature like "ChanNum++".
Here in Austin, almost all of the Starbucks stores have the WiFi subscription service. Because I live within 1 mile of 3 of them, my home network keeps getting tied up with surfers at Starbucks making queries. I've had to set up my LinkSys wireless hub/router to give out IP's based on the card address, lest the folks at Starbucks use MY internet connection, which I am paying for.
Even after doing that, I've run into a couple of cases where people have had cards with the same address as one or both of mine, and I've been locked out of my own personal wireless network due to conflicts. And with Wireless, there's no easy way to resolve the issue as long as the boneheads at Starbucks keeps his laptop/PDA on. And before you say "Imposssible!", let me tell you that it's more than possible, it has happened at least a half dozen times.
Any experienced IT guy will have run into a case or three where they've gotten a batch of NICs, all with the same MAC address...
OTOH, it's fun to take my spare LinkSys router down to Starbucks set up to give IP addresses, and just plug it in. Just into the wall, with no WAN connection. Most of the time, people there will harvest an IP address from my router intead of the one at Starbucks, and be unable to surf the web.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
First of all, among equal level licencees, he who is first wins - since both parties are operating under part 15 rules, the Personal T. folks would win in an FCC action as they were on frequency first, and can prove it.
Second, he with the better license wins. Since 802.11b is FCC part 15 in a band that Hams occupy, get a licensed amateur to set up a station in that band, running max legal, and simply STOMP Starbucks out. Since a ham operates under FCC part 97, which trumps part 15, when Starbucks complains the ham can say "Sorry, but you have to ACCEPT all interference from my system - you are part 15, look at your license. Also, you are CAUSING interference in my system - stop immediately, as you are in violation of part 15."
While this sort of thing is frowned upon by the Amateur Radio Relay League, this may be what is needed to drive the message home to the companies that CASH does not make RIGHT.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Starbucks could simply apply enough legal pressure on these free WIFI guy's upstream ISP's which after a while will cause them to lose their accounts seeing as how the ISP's don't want to spend a bunch of money in court defending a bunch of loser "Information wants to be free" degernerates.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I set up something similar at work. We have 2 sets of wireless APs. One is for VMUs, (Vehicle Mounted Units) while the other is for laptops. Both are on channel 6 (had to be for other reasons) and both have different SSIDs. The laptops will not connect to the VMU APs, even if there is no signal from the Laptop APs. My Zaurus' Wireless card is set to "any" so it works on both of these networks, and will "hop" between them with no problems.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
because of this line (from article):
Now, they can inadvertently connect to the Starbucks paid service.
I predict that starbucks will go to the courts about how people are "stealing" their service... It's probably only a matter of time before the lawyers will be on this. If this does end up happening, imagine the precedent. That means no more free WiFi. Although, on the other hand, perhaps Personal Telco could start charging a donation of $5/year or something so they can claim the same from Starbucks customers.
For the past several months, the warchalking meme has pervaded the distributed consciousness of the UK and these our United States (no off. to my overseas /.'ing brethren).
Why not warchalk your nodes, feed on the media hype?
Warchlaking seems to me a really sexy way of advertising access points. I'm guessing this sexiness is to due to Matt Jones applying his talent as a designer to iconifying node info.
Here's to giving Starbucks a wireless black eye.
msq
blog
You can just say "you can't more then X radio stations"
An alternatibe way to regulate would be to say "you cannot transmit more than X kW." Then it's your choice if you operate a few big stations or a lot of small stations.
Hmm... someone attempting to destroy that which is free so that they can sell it. I know I've heard this somewhere before.
For the users of Personal Telco, anyway.
If it's true that Starbucks wants to capitalize on the presence of WiFi users in Pioneer Square and is doing so by jamming the incumbent channel (as well as degrading the access of their own users), Personal Telco's moving to a different channel may not help.
Starbucks could simply migrate their services or, more likely, establish presence on that channel as well. Starbucks, it would seem, is intent not on occupying Personal Telco's space as much as assimilating Personal Telco's users
No?
blog
.......because the money to pay for all this bandwidth usage will simply fall out of the sky just like the money that kept all those stupid dotcom businesses going did......oh wait it didn't!
This free WIFI shit is just a fad. It has no sound economic foundation to support it. SOMEONE is gonna get a big fat bill from their ISP for idiotically giving their entire neighborhood access to it. They won't be able or willing to pay, and that will be the end of the free WIFI movement.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
This is a commercial venture sponsored by Starbucks to make their stores more attractive. It has everything to do with Starbucks. As with any advertising campaign, of course it has nothing to do with your sister, or her highschool lackies at the store level. Never the less, this is still cause to jump down Starbucks throat.
Even though Starbucks has no technical knowledge of the service, and don't really do the support, it is a starbucks service. Starbucks has simply outsourced the technical side of the service, so to speak.
You are being very naive to think that if I hire you to do work for me, give you the space to do your work, and only do this because I think your presence will make me money, that I have no interest in what you do, or that I have no culpability in your, mine, or our combined actions.
that I just read an interesting little essay about this not to long ago.
I was almost sure that it was linked from here.
The jist (gist ?) of the essay was that the author would already frequent a coffee house that offered free internet access, and that was his preferred place to drink coffee anyway. Once, while he was in a Starbucks, he turned on his computer, and noticed this T-Mobile access, and that it was going to cost him 30/mo.
His question was, what were they offering for $30/mo, and why would he pay that instead of going to the mom and pop coffee house that gave the service away for free.
He also did some math to say that the service paid for itself if it brought in two extra cups of coffee a day or something like that.
If they really annoy you, then find a constructive use for that band that happens to interfere with 802.11 and they'll go away. It's the ISM band, and it's unregulated other than power limits (although, that's not exactly difficult to cheat on). You could be even more malicious and do some driver hacking to malform 802.11 control signals. The 802.11 protocol from my preliminary investigations appears to be very vulnerable to such attacks.
I'm not advocating any of this, but jessums, it's one of the few unregulated bands because it's largely too noisy for much useful stuff. If you want to have a band all to your self, there are plenty of ways to go about that.
This is a non issue.
..don't panic
Despite differing SSIDs, the two APs are on the SAME CHANNEL.
i.e. range and speed are now greatly reduced for both premises.
I think the SeattleWireless people should start up a donation fund to pump their AP up to legal-limit power.
Starbucks will be forced to change that channel or get complaints from people trying to use their system.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
i dont dont use wifi so bear with me. when you connect to the internet with a wifi card dont you have to choose which connection to use? if so then both can wifize the area and people can choose to not pay or be ripped off for their net connection?
It sounds like it's sited at an ISP that uses those dual T1s for other purposes.
At the moment, the 802.11 traffic likely isn't much of a negative impact on whatever they're doing up there.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If a bunch of people on /. each sent $5-10 to the PersonalTelco people, they could buy a 1-watt SmartAmp.
*splat* Goodbye Starbucks, unless they move off-channel.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
That's the PROBLEM. Starbucks and the free guys are using the same frequency. You can't stomp out one without stomping out the other. If they were using separate frequencies so you could stomp out just Starbucks, there wouldn't be a problem.
Have a section of this band be licensed for commercial, for-profit use. Let the big guys play with the big guys and let the little guys alone.
My answer is: if you want to sell service or do any for profit commerce at all, buy a license and use your allocated spot. The rest of us are free to use the other area of the band freely (as in beer AND speech).
The catch here is that the FCC would need to allocate only a couple channels for commercial use and leave the rest open. I suppose they'd probably get greedy and sell all but one channel to the highest bidders... which is why I have a rather large thorn in my side when it comes to the FCC.
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
... that those moderators have been smoking? Adam obviously didn't read the article (or maybe he read it, but was too dumb to understand it..), yet he still gets an +5 Informative rather than a -5 Besides the point.
I bet within 48 months wireless access will require a license and that the cost will mean only for profits can afford to provide service.
Its what the enterntainment and phone companies want. So its what we'll get.
a la snoop the Starbucks wireless network
To say that "federal regulators have little authority over it" is irresponsible and simply untrue. Starting with the Communications Act of 1934 and subsequent amendments, the FCC has authority over all spectrum (although a big chunk of that is delegated to the NTIA for military and other government uses). As several other posters have noted, Part 15 rules apply here, which is you cannot cause harmful interference and must accept any interference caused you. That does not mean that they do not have authority over it, nor does it mean that they will not exert different authority over it in the future.
All that being said, it has been my experience that market forces often prevail, as does, usually, the majority. Let me see, pay $0 a month, pay $30 a month or pay $50 a month. All things being equal, I'd rather pay $0 a month. But if the majority of the users of the system become travelling salesmen, then perhaps they'd pay the $50 a month for the convenience of sending spam from any airport in the country.
Can I sit in a Starbucks and connect to the freenet? Probably. I doubt the guy who's getting the tips will complain as long as I keep refilling my cup of coffee.
If the service is $30 a month better than the freeware, then I don't mind paying. Hey, I was paying $75/month for Ricochet service.
If this were easy, they wouldn't need us to do it!
families on a bus heading to work. Fuck the Arabs. If anyone over here had a clue we would end our oil dependance as soon as possible and sent the fucking camel jockeys back to the stone ages. Oil being unnecessary equals 3rd world arab states.
I think if I were the free network guys, I'd switch to another channel, but be sure to leave at least one access point broadcasting on channel 1. That way informed people could get decent free access on the alternate channel, and Starbucks gets to keep the crappy congested airwaves that they decided to co-op.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
You are at Starbucks drinking a $3 coffee and you would like wireless service while enjoying your liquid refreshment
You would:
a. Pay $30 for wireless service you can get for free
b. Use the free service and buy more coffee
"T-Mobile is geared toward business people whose employers often foot the bill, he said."
Airlines are having problems because businesses no longer want to pay premium prices for air travel. Their business models depend on these high-priced fares.
Will T-Mobile have the same fate when businesses start asking their employees to take advantage of free and low-cost Wi-Fi providers? Other than ease-of-use, what does the T-Mobile service offer as compared to community networks?
Nope, no sig
Of course, if the free service finds a dead zone they're likely to try to extend their area of coverage with a beam toward it. If there is free access inside Starbucks, that is Starbucks' problem.
Maybe aluminum foil wallpaper and metallic sun coating on the glass doors will keep both groups happy.
... they're a coffee shop after all :-)
The big bone of contention is that Starbucks is using the same frequencies as Personal Telco. As a result, service is degraded for both services. Since Personal Telco was there first, and since they're using spare bandwidth from companies that surround Pioneer Square, it seems that by doing this, Starbucks would be somehow using the bandwidth that these other companies are donating. It would also seem that, since Personal Telco was there first, then it's be up to T-Mobile (the company implementing the wi-fi network for Starbucks) to find a different channel to inhabit.
Since everyone seems to be sick of paying $4 for a coffee, maybe Starbucks is changing their business model to one of a wireless ISP. I'm not sure how profitable this would be, however, business travelers might enjoy the convenience of stepping into any starbucks and being able to surf and check email. At $30 a month, with stores coast to coast and in many airports (not to mention foreign countries), this may be a convenience to some, if not many, who travel with wireless enabled laptops.
"Smokey, this isn't Nam, there are rules." -Walter
I travel almost constantly, so having home-based broadband was not serving me very well. The service provider T-mobile charges a fixed price (about the same as broad band) for access at all its partner locations. So far, they are in Starbucks, American Airlines, and several hotel chains. Pretty much wherever I go around the country, I am a short drive to a point of presence.
Also, some locations are very, very fast. At the Starbucks down the street from my work site in Houston, I downloaded all 5 CD's of Red Hat 7.3 in under 3 hours. It beats the crap out of dialing out through the hotel PBX.
Finally, as long as the two networks are using different SSID's why does it matter? You have a 11 Mb pipe no matter how you slice it. The two should be able to share the waves without problems.
Is it so bad to pay $1.50 for a cup of coffee, and $0.50 for refills, while you surf and do your big downloads? The soundtrack sucks, but headphones fix that! And, someone else cleans up afterwards.
[
As far as I know the 802.11 spectrum is designated for public (non-commercial) use. I wonder what would happen if the FCC got wind of this?
It's Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Pioneer Square is in Seattle.
WTF: Seattle, Portland, if it's west of the Missippippi, it's all the same anyway.
Just like "Chinese" haiku: who cares?
Idiots.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
This is the 2.4Ghz ISM band. It's UNREGULATED.
That means, as long as you follow the transmission rules, you have to accept any interference you get.
Starbucks cannot complain if someone elses access points interfere with their service, and vice versa.
This is NO different than, say, me using wifi in my yard when before I used my neighbors.
Who gets priority? Where is this priority you speak of?
Maybe starbucks gets priority because their AP will be the closest, being in the shop itself?
This is SO a non-issue
Starbucks just doesn't know what they are doing.
From the article, it points out they were 'unaware' of any pre-existing wi-fi networks in the area.
But from reading the comments and the article, people did use the free service even while in Starbucks. Somebody had to notice.
My best guess is this is all being directed from the top buy people who don't quite understand the technology.
The lower reports came out that stated that Starbucks is interfering with a local 'free' network. (More likely, the reports stated a local 'free' network was interfering with Starbucks.
It's been my experience that high level executives don't have a clue what makes technology tick. How hard would it be to switch their service onto a different SSID channel? It takes me about 5 seconds on my wi-fi network.
But more likely then not, in their eyes it means a dramatic change in equipment, 'reprogramming' costs, etc. So they won't budge, which is almost silly.
Either that, or they are just a money grubbing corperation hell bent on destroying compitition in any arena they choose to compete in.
The Internet is generally stupid
Regulation doesn't have to take the form of FCC licenses, fees, under-the-table bribes to FCC beurocrats, etc. The fact that things work that way is more a result of government and petty beurocrats seizing an opportunity to accumulate power, influence, and a revinue stream more than an inherent "inevitable" consiquence of needed regulation.
An alternative approach could have been a regulatory regime that allowed anyone to use whichever frequencie(s) they like, with perhaps
(1) a limit on wattage
(2) a limit on the number of frequencies used
(3) a requirement that the broadcast not interfere with other broadcasts, as defined by some measurable metric
and perhaps a few other, similiar constraints.
The upshot: as long as you adhere to such rules, you would be free to broadcast anything, anywhere.
Of course, then the censorous religious right wouldn't have a vehicle for imposing their brand of puritanism upon the rest of us (banning foul language, certain subjects, etc.), and cartels would be more difficult to form, so those with the power and authority to do so chose another way of doing one, one that serves them rather than the public at large. That is unfortunate in the extreme, and our culture has paid a very high price ("[tv | radion] is a vast cultural wasteland" may be a cliche, but it is a true one, and it didn't have to be that way), but that doesn't mean that complete lack of regulation and resulting chaos is any more preferable.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I've been in the RF biz since "wireless" was a quaint, archaic term that nobody used. Back in the old days, the FCC pretty much kept a lid on the spectrum. That worked well, there were grumblings about the extortion by the monopoly "frequency coordinators" but overall, everything was cool. Then, deregulation and auctions hit. Bush Sr.'s administration got it started, but the FCC under Reed Hundt (AlGore's law school roommate) really screwed things up bad. The frequency coordination system went straight to hell, 800 MHz licenses were revoked and given to NexTel, small 2-way shops were driven out of business, all the prime RF channels were sold to big mega-corporations. Low-power unlicensed stuff is a joke, the frequency-hopping schemes don't work, digital doesn't cover nearly as well as analog. Being unlicensed, the FCC could give a shit about co-channel interference, interference from adjacent-channel licensed equipment has an even lower priority. (try using 920-MHz unlicensed stuff near a 500-watt 930MHz paging transmitter). The only way to get reliable "wireless" networks running is to buy a chunk of spectrum from the FCC, and build out a network.
I live in NYC and go to a small cafe to do work on my laptop. The cafe is right next door to Starbucks. I'm assuming Starbucks charges for access (plus I loathe going in there), so could I just hope on their network from next door, or do I need to be on their specific configuration? If the answer to the above is "yes", then can I pay for access once, get teh config info, then hop on using that same info at a later time? Or do they just charge for when you are in the store itself? hmmm......
Bingo, but then so would the Western need for Israel.
I was just down at Pioneer Square to check this out. It turns out the SB/T.Mobile's signal is so strong, my Zaurus cannot even see the PT signal. If I try to connect, I keep getting the T.Mobile ad screen. They have effectively obliterated the free service. I'm currently looking for an app for the Z that will allow me to select a network to communicate with. So far no luck.
He who has the deepest pockets wins. Look at every FCC decision since Reed Hundt's days as chairman.
Another thing - ham radio is going to go by the wayside in another 10 years... the spectrum is too valuable to waste on a bunch of non-paying hobbyists, when big telcos and broadcasters would be willing to spend billions for it.
Send them an e-mail
f ?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page /102975810817580.xml
Send them this letter:
Dear Starbucks:
Your company has begun using the same transmission channel that a non-profit organization uses in Oregan.
You may find information about the issue here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ss
I acknowledge that the channel which your company is broadcasting on is public, and therefore not regulated; however, as this organization has been at the Oregan site prior to your network's existance, it reflects badly as an attempt to take over a public channel. I may choose, therefore, not to buy my coffee from Starbucks, as I disagree with the actions which your company is taking. I am not asking for your company to stop using it's service, merely to change the channel at this location, as Personal Telco has been using this channel for the prior 6 months. I would be very grateful if you would recognize the prior existance of an organization on channel 1, and change your channel, so as to stop the signal interference from the 2 networks clashing (thereby reducing both their speeds).
Thank you for your time,
**************INSERT YOUR NAME HERE***************
I sent my letter. Did you send yours?
-=Lothsahn=-
They have other expenses you know. Like say, rent. Wake up and smell the coffee!
Anyway, what is to keep the PTP guys from just changing the frequency?
Having seen Sean Penn's acting in I Am Sam, where his character works in starbucks, I shudder to think what a possible sequel might be like with this taking place. "You've chosen www..com, that's an excellent choice"
any accusations that they're "squeezing out" personaltelco or attempting to put someone out of business is fecetious.
Full of shit?
I do not think that means what you think it means.
--saint
Fuck starbucks and their expensive and crappy coffee -- There is no way I am paying for the pro-Israel lobby.
Easy solution. Ban the sale of the spectrum. If they want to sell the frequency, let them license their own damn spectrum. This one is the public's. Am I right?
Honestly, this seems like sort of a non-issue to me. Anyone setting up a free wi-fi network should realize that others may eventually come along and set up networks that "step on" their airspace.
Starbucks, on the other hand, has clearly shown that they choose to take an unfriendly stance towards this competing network. (Coming at it from their point of view, can you blame them? It's obviously in their best interest to eliminate or disrupt the competition - so they can force people to pay that monthly fee to use their own connection instead.)
I tend to agree with you... You can sit here and complain about the principle of it forever, or you can take a simple action that resolves the problem. Personal Telco just needs to use another channel. It's part of the 802.1b standard anyway.
1) "Starbucks main interest in this is merely to prevent people from sitting around their retail stores and using their computers for free." What computers? The idea is that people bring by their own laptops and use the WiFi access that Tmobile provides.
2) "those who want to even go near the place will be forced to pay Starbucks a damn subscription fee just to try and use what they once where able to use for free." Wrong again. Starbucks doesn't make a nickel off of the access, Tmobile does. Starbucks gets their money from the coffee you drink while sitting around surfing.
The problem here is Tmobile, who wants to charge you for WiFi access instead of letting you use someone else's free access. Get it straight.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
All it takes is a power supply and some adapters. And you wouldn't need 100 watts, 10 would be more than enough to blow away anybody else for miles around.
Find a 2-way equipment wholesaler... Tessco and Hutton spring to mind, check out their power amplifers.