Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

War Car Offers Wi-Fi

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-how-does-that-work dept.

NetGyver writes "news.com has an interesting story about public hot-spot operators that use a weapon in protest against the growth of commercial Wi-Fi networks: Michael Oh's "war car." The 1997 Saturn has enough Wi-Fi equipment installed on its bumper and rooftop to create a 150-foot wireless network, said Oh, who helps run a free wireless network covering two Boston city blocks and is one of hundreds of so-called public hot-spot operators who believe Wi-Fi networks and the Internet access they offer should remain free."

1 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. His web site by ProfessorPuke · · Score: 4, Informative
    Is here
    A few comments have insulted this guy, calling his car a dumb publicity stunt. They say he's not really providing a viable alternative to the paid system, because his car will just drive away the next evening.

    Wrong! In this neighborhood, he's been working to provide free 802.11b connections for some time. Any property owner on Newbury Street can contact him to get a free WAP installed.

    The point is that most of the utility of portable WiFi access is dependent on connectivity, not high bandwidth. Most users will be very satisfied if they can just check/read their email, and download a little text. That works fine with a 30kbps link, and increasing bandwidth only slowly increases percieved value. That kind of data rate can get lost in the noise of anyone's broadband connection- so if you throttle the utilization of anonymous users, you've got essentially $0 costs (besides $100 for the WAP box).

    Since the financial barriers to entry are so low, this won't be a viable business for T-Mobile; unless they can somehow block out new entries. And they can do this by grabbing up prime chunks of this unregulated RF spectrum by getting their transmitters installed first.

    Its a race- whoever can deploy first will win the consumer mindshare. Once users take 802.11b for granted, they won't be willing to pay. But there will be property owners willing to run cheap WAPs to attract potential customers.

    It is true that the War Car is just a stunt for publicity- and it seems to have worked. Maybe this will inspire some other coffee-vendors to ask him for help in competing with Starbucks.