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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."
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.
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.
You have wifi, you hang around the cafe surfing the net. You hang around the cafe, you drink cups of $$ coffee and eat on their ££ munches.
Its amazing how many people (in the UK at least) treat the local Starbucks as their company's extra meeting room.
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
Starbucks Begins 'Phase Two'
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
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.
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.
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... --
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.
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.
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."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.]
Story:
source
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
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....
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
The spectrum rules are generic for any use of RF, including microwave ovens. WiFi happens to be a standard that, since there were no government service licenses, and because it was intended for very local (home, office) usage, did not plan for this.
That said, it is clear that now we know there is a market for a licensed, possibly frequency coordinated, service in this category. As popular as it is expected to be, a lot of bandwidth might be needed. You'll probably not find that anywhere below 24 GHz in the spectrum. Also, licensed services won't work out in the Part 15 spectrum. To make this happen, the FCC would have to study what spectrum could be used, and set up rules to establishing a licensing. Surely there will be geo-spectral auctioning in the process. It's not unlike other services from broadcast to cell phones. But don't expect that only a handful of businesses will want to get into this. Hundreds probably will. Dividing spectrum by frequency isn't all that good, either, especially for digital. Spread spectrum sharing is what is going to have to happen, and even that will reduce bandwidth to each as total usage increases.
I do believe the FCC needs to designate part of the spectrum (by frequency) for non-commercial free services (but also shareable between overlapped free services), with reduced licensing requirements and no auction.
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."
It's Starbucks, overpriced shit coffee. Why are you surprised they are offering overpriced net access?
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
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
Nope, no sig
Starbucks is smarter than that: MobileStar and now T-Mobile are spending money on Starbucks behalf in order to have the customer base. Starbucks, at last report, has spent $0.00 to put wireless access in. The whole thing sounds like a "Starbucks" issue; it's actually their wireless service provider partner plus Starbucks.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
Great, so who is going to change first? The incumbant, with plenty of existing users and infrastructure, or the corporate new guy with inflexible policy?
funny munging
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?
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
No need to boost the signal, just set up 6 access points with directional antennas on channel 1, and like a radiation machine to excise a cancer, set it up so all 6 of the beams intersect at the T-Mobile access point. That should swamp that access point until Starbucks decides to lower the gain on their antenna, or install shielding.
Macgruder,
Where on Ventura? West Valley, or ShermanOaks/StudioCity area? Cross streets? (I live in West Hills... I don't really want to go waaaaay out of my way for caffeine!)
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
yeah, its too bad that you aren't allowed to make critical comments on this site about countries that steal land and kill innocent civilians.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Why? If I order a certain amount of bandwidth from my ISP, I can use it in any way I want unless I signed a contract which limits the usage by some other terms as well.
> It has no sound economic foundation to support it
BLEEP, wrong. ISPs want to currently sell you a fixed-rate of bandwidth. Until they start really charging per amount transferred, free WiFi makes perfect sense. Is that a sound economic foundation, maybe not, but atleast it is more sound than selling an unlicensed spectrum whose quality you can in no way guarantee.
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=-
James flips open his laptop with WiFi card and special software, intercepts pr0n from Joe/John's traffic, and leaves. Point is, how safe is this? Is Starbucks willing to take responsibility for people's data that is flying around all unsecure like?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
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.
Or the computer system that Joe hacks into while sipping his iced chai.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Not so many probably. But maybe the entire neighborhood is? :)
Hehe, this thread of ours is getting long :)) but... because you can get it much cheaper if you make one bigger order (one faster connection).