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Starbucks Clashes With WiFi Hobbyists Over Airwaves

Posted by timothy on from the dr-evil-at-play dept.

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."

7 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can't do that? by sconeu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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" ??

    Of course not. Those public free users are obviously Evil Terrorist Commie Content Pirates(tm), and should be kicked off in favor of the Good American Patriotic Capitalist(tm) company!

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  2. Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? by guttentag · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It seems like this whole "news" article is just a sly advertisment for T-Mobile and Starbucks and their new partnership.
    Hardly. Before the article even mentions T-Mobile, it points out that Starbucks is trying to promote a pay-service where a free service already exists. How does informing readers of the free-alternative promote the $30/month service?
  3. Re:Problems with Unregulated by Omega+Hacker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    GStreamer - The only way to stream!
  4. How does the community group pay for itself? by Goonie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  5. This is stupid. by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    Gorkman

  6. Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? by BenHmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why don't the personal telco people rent out space on the dual T1s to Starbucks. Everyone wins that way.

  7. Re:802.11b supports overlapping networks by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Is it T-Mobile's fault that their corporate policy is inflexible

    If it isn't their fault, then whose fault is it?

    --
    Say no to software patents.