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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
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.
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.
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.
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'
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
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.
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 :)
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.
Wi Fi is unregulated in most countries.. including US
And currently most chipsets support frequency hopping to aviod cluttering.
The problems are coming in becuase Telco's are trying to make it east for themseleves by sticking to one channel. This saves on equipment costs and stuff.
In the long run this causes problems.. but remember thats how most people operate.... Find a solution only when problem comes... if preplanning was the norm the level of chaos would be much less.
The 802.11b standard is beautifuly designed but most people do not implement all the features to cut costs
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
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.
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..
Story:
source
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
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
Read even more details about Part 15 rules here.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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.
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
You miss the point. The point is to convice Starbucks to "play nice", by demonstrating the consiquences of not playing nice.
You jam them off the air, accepting that you won't be able to use the frequency either. You then demonstrate to them that this is the classical Prisoner's Dilemma - if we both are nice, we both win. If we both are nasty, we both lose. If one is nasty and one is nice, nasty wins.
The long-term winning strategy is "Nice first, the whatever the other guy does." PT started out nice, Starbucks started out nasty. So PT goes REALLY nasty. If Starbucks goes nice (by moving to a different channel), then PT goes nice.
Of course, since PT is providing a better service than Starbucks, Starbuck's cannot win playing nice UNLESS they shift their paradigm - perhaps co-operating wit PT in this one area to provide better coverage (e.g. Starbucks pays PT for a share of their T1 bandwidth in exchange for allowing Starbucks users in. Sure, in that locatilty you can get in free, but in other areas you cannot - so if you are a traveler you are better off subscribing.)
This just goes to show the flaw in all business thinking now-a-days - everybody treats the world as a zero-sum game ("For me to win, others must lose") rather than looking for non-zero-sum solutions ("Here's how we can ALL win"). Starbucks could have easily made this a win-win situation ("We'll kick in for bandwidth, you let our customers in, but also let anybody else in too.").
www.eFax.com are spammers
If someone has the same hardware address as your card, either: You've changed yours and your the one causing the conflict, or...
They are doing it on PURPOSE.
THe hardware address of all network cars are unique when they leave the factory. If there is a conflict it is likely someone changed theirs intentionally.
As for the 'batch of NICs', I know it happens, but it does NOT happen often any more. It is likely they are snooping yours. Do yourself a favour and enable encryption.