War Car Offers Wi-Fi

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."

Comments

But who pays for it?

[realmolo]

"...Wi-Fi networks and the Internet access they offer should remain free." But they aren't free now! People that hook on to unsecured Wi-Fi networks are stealing, plain and simple.

Re:But who pays for it?

[Dun Malg]

In my opinion, resources that are on public property are free by implied consent. Your opinion is silly. Can I have your car next time you park on a street?

Pull your head out, please. Like all those idiots who say "copying a music CD is theft/stealing", you are comparing real property e.g. my car, with services. Services may or may not cost someone money based on quantity used. WiFi accesss on public property could be compared to putting a drinking fountain next to the sidewalk. Water is a metered utility, but cheap enough for a drinking fountain to not incur any significant cost; likewise, 'net access is cheap in that it's usually either flat-rate or metered only above a certain cap. If you don't lock up your sidewalk-adjacent drinking fountain, people will use it and you'd have a hard time getting the authorities to do anything about it. If you don't want the public using your sidewalk-accessable drinking fountain (wireless network), lock it up (encrypt it) and only give keys to those whom you wish to use it. If you pay a lot of money on a metered basis for your Internet access, then you're a fool to leave it open for anyone to use (see sidewalk drinking fountain analogy).
Point is, one can pontificate about absolute morality (picking a dime up off the sidewalk is theft!), or take the Common Law/rational approach to such things (would a reasonable and prudent person assume that a drinking fountain by the sidewalk is for public use?). Free WiFi 'net access is common enough that if a reasonable and prudent person with an 802.11b equipped laptop found himself able to access his webmail at Denny's, he'd assume it was intended for public use. To argue that one should seek specific permission first renders unusable such publicly-available things as parking lots and sidewalks.

Re:But who pays for it?

[ArsSineArtificio]

Point is, one can pontificate about absolute morality (picking a dime up off the sidewalk is theft!), or take the Common Law/rational approach to such things (would a reasonable and prudent person assume that a drinking fountain by the sidewalk is for public use?). Free WiFi 'net access is common enough that if a reasonable and prudent person with an 802.11b equipped laptop found himself able to access his webmail at Denny's, he'd assume it was intended for public use.

Yeah, right. I'm driving past a building and I happen to see that I can, for a few feet, access BOBS_NETWORK. Doubtless that means that Bob is delighted to let any passerby use the access which he has paid for.

By your analogy, if he left his door unlocked I could come in and make a couple calls on his home phone. Hey! It's not like he's getting charged by the call! Wait, a reasonable and prudent person wouldn't think that one could enter another person's home... and a reasonable and prudent person wouldn't think that one could get unauthorized access to another person's network.

Your comparison between metered and unmetered services is completely idiotic. The point is, Bob paid for his Internet access, and it's his. It isn't yours. And it's his to decide who gets to use it, even if it wouldn't cost him any more to let you use it also. Just because you contrived a clever way to use it without his knowledge or permission doesn't mean it's yours.

I can see here the age-old argument that the clever have the natural right to steal from the foolish.

Ut oh

[Adam9]

So if this car got into an accident.. would that be a Denial of Service attack?

If it's not free it must be.... EVIL MUHAHAHAHAHA

[CajunArson]

Why doesn't he start putting up 'free' phone booths in protest against the 'evil' spread of
commercial payphones?
I know you guys all love Free software and everything, but it's simple economics... if people really want something (WiFi) and are willing to pay for it, a commercial entity will provide it. It's really interesting that Slashdot loves to carp about how other countries have such wonderful wireless networks and America
is supposedly in the stoneage, and then they bitch and moan about how wireless networks are everywhere, its just you have to actually pay to use them!

(P.S.--> If you use a 'free' college wireless network like I do everyday, just remember: it's not 'free' unless you don't pay any tuition to go to school.... think about it)

he shot who in the what now?

[deander2]

he's trying to put a hole in their business model? and try proving it should be free? is this guy on crack?

no hole, because it's only within 1500' of his base, and he's not parked outside the starbucks all the time.

and to prove a business should offer it for free? how much money did he spend? how much time did he spend? what business is going to invest that for a guaranteed no return?

don't get me wrong, i think businesses would do well to offer value-add services like wireless internet inside their stores free-of-charge just like they do restrooms. I think starbuck's plan will go the way of the pay-toilet. but this guy is going about demonstrating it the wrong way.

the crack monkies are definitely among us.. :-)

Re:he shot who in the what now?

[GigsVT]

i think businesses would do well to offer value-add services like wireless internet inside their stores free-of-charge just like they do restrooms. I think starbuck's plan will go the way of the pay-toilet. but this guy is going about demonstrating it the wrong way.

If it weren't for those brave rebels who dared to park their porta-potty in the parking lot of stores with pay toilets then we would all still be paying to use the toilet.

What's the point?

[Osiris Ani]

A Starbucks representative could not be reached Friday for comment. A representative at Wireless carrier T-Mobile, which supplies Starbucks with the access, declined to comment.

Probably because they couldn't care less. Seriously, what's the point? Okay, he drives the war car around and provides sporadic wireless 'net access to people in the general area of a Starbucks, thus proving to them that they do indeed have a choice... until he drives away.

Then the user is left without the choice unless someone else nearby also happens to be giving it away, which is unlikely, as there would be no benefit in his being there in the first place if a free Wi-Fi alternative already existed in the area.

Thus he proves the the business model against which he's rallying is perfectly sound, as it provides consistent 'net access to all subscribing patrons. Yes, unlike the war car, their pay network is there when the customers need it.

Okey dokey.

Not every neighborhood is chock full of good citizens who are willing to share their bandwidth with anyone within range who happens to have a laptop. There's nothing inherently wrong with or immoral about a business model based upon selling Internet access. Those who want to set up public access Wi-Fi networks that will serve their local few hundred meters are welcome to it, but I fail to see the point in blasting ISPs for actually daring to charge for the services they provide.

Sometimes stuff costs money. Sometimes people are willing to pay for that stuff, and thus they reap whatever benefits are available to them. Those who are not willing to pay for stuff have the option of seeking alternatives to stuff, circumventing the fee model for stuff, or simply doing without stuff.

His web site

[ProfessorPuke]

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.

This seems rather shortsighted.

[Gumber]

It seems to me that antagonizing commercial WiFi operators is an invitation to regulations.

The existing unlicensed spectrum may remain free, but it will become filled up with a proliferation of low power RF devices, ranging from WiFi, to phones to RF-lighting.

When this time comes, we will want the FCC to open up more unlicensed spectrum, but we may not get it, or as much, if commercial WiFi providers are at the same time lobbying the FCC for their own slice of licensed spectrum so they can do business without people deliberately trying to screw them.

Miss the point; Free Wireless because of economics

[Thalia]

Why rant about should there be free wireless; rant about there will be free wireless. It just makes sense.

The secondary profits of providing free wireless access are more than the primary profits of commerical wireless access. A free site tends to have about $500 in fixed costs, $100 per month in variable costs for bandwith at the site, and, well, nothing for billing and back end systems. A commercial site has these costs, plus about $50 per site to keep the back end and user accounts running, plus $10 per user per month in technical support costs. The technical support costs are the killer.

I chatted with a marketing droid for our local coffee shop's provider. It took him a bit to understand that $20 per month really was the maximum I would pay, that I wouldn't pay more for lighting fast access or access to any of the hundred of so sites nationwide or for special software so that I didn't need to keep a browser window minimized. I have access elsewhere; it's only worth $20 per month. Too bad they have technical support from people trying to get their 802.11(b) card to work under Windows 95/98/98SE/2K/ME/NT/XP/XPpro with NetScape/IE4/IT5/....

That provider tanked, someone else took over a month later. The coffee house noticed a significant drop during the slow hours when geeks drank coffee and typed on computers. The other coffee house is not as good but had free wireless and I spend $120 in the month I was there.

Hold it you say, $120 per month for wireless? Well, about $80 per month in profit. I drink a lot of coffee. It's worth more to the coffee shop to provide the wireless point, provide no support, and sell coffee than it will ever be worth to the wireless service provider to deal with billing and customer support for $20 per month.

Wireless wants to be free, just because it makes more money that way.