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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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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 University, of course, would be laughed out of court by the FCC, as unregulated means unregulated. No lawyer would have to be hired, no money or significant time expended, just read the relevant sections out of the FCC regulations to the judge and go home.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
More importantly, why does it cost 30 bucks a month to check your E-Mail at the coffee shop? Isn't that a little high priced for something you use at a place you probably don't spend more than 30 minutes at?
My home based broadband costs less than that.
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.
Not really. T-mobile has hooked up this node (and quite a few others from what I've heard, for cost reasons) to the 'Net with a satellite connection. That means ~400Kbps downstream and horrible latency.
The PTP node on the other hand is directly connected to two almost entirely idle load-balanced T1's.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
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?)
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
It's Starbucks, overpriced shit coffee. Why are you surprised they are offering overpriced net access?
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.
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.
If it isn't their fault, then whose fault is it?
Say no to software patents.
I imagine that Starbucks is trying to keep identical settings for its entire network. This is very understandable as many of the people using their service won't be technically literate. The idea is you can just sit down and any connected Starbucks and start surfing with your laptop.
I'm not saying it is right to do since the other group was there first but their policy does make sense.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-