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Verizon To Offer WiFi At Pay Phones

Posted by timothy on from the can-you-ping-me-now dept.

Makarand writes "Verizon has ambitious plans to catapult pay phones from the pre-cellular era to the WiFi era by creating hotspots around pay phones using an extension of their DSL service. The current plan is to upgrade 200,000 pay phones in the New York metro area to provide a WiFi service. Although major metros are spotted with hotspots, finding them is usually a big problem. Verizon thinks that specially marked WiFi enabled pay phones would solve the problem of locating the hotspots." Sounds similar to Bell Canada's move to do the same.

9 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. This is a pleasant surprise. by GreatDave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd love to see payphones miniaturized and extended into both wireless broadband hotspots and VoIP phone points. This could lead to more bang for the buck for Verizon.

    --
    "I am root. Bow before me." To this I say, "You are root, and you bear the sins of the world upon your shoulders."
  2. A last gasp by coupland · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a last attempt by independent business units to make pay phones viable. The fact is that pay phones are very obsolete technology but very expensive to maintain. The business units responsible for them need to find SOME way to survive but ultimately they are a decade behind the curve...

    1. Re:A last gasp by zutroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think that Verizon actually needs to do this. They don't really have an interest in keeping the payphones viable; they're phasing them out anyway. This is just an interesting new way to use existing infrastructure that would have otherwise been sent to the scrap heap.

  3. Re:Would've First Posted but I read the article by PatJensen · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Just fire up NetStumbler and take a drive down Shaw Ave to 99. There are tons of businesses with open WiFi, and a lot of the condo/apt complexes have at least a dozen wide open APs.

    Or, hit up the Starbucks all over town if you want to pay $6/sitting for some internet access in Fresno.

    -Pat

  4. Wireless is no more insecure by xtal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please. Wires are only marginally more secure than wireless - you can sniff ethernet cables with a directional antenna, too, and there's a much lower tech inductive couple mechanism for your phones.

    Saying wireless is insecure should be like saying a wire is insecure. A wire IS insecure, if it's connected to anything. You should always assume wired and wireless networks have been compromised and do the only intelligent thing: Hard transparent encryption (ssh killed the telnet star, like you said) from end to end. There are many well-documented means for doing this on wireless networks. The only additional attack you might be vulerable to is DOS attacks - and you can usually find the person doing it and beat them with a bat. You don't get away from bandwidth DOS vulerablities with a wire, either.

    There are many people running wireless in a production environment, myself being one of them. You just have to have the mind in gear before engaging your hands.

    This could be easily automated for the masses, ala PPPoE. Try configuring that in linux or a *BSD, then try it with the install packages from most major DSL providers. Click, click, done. Implementing a daemon to do some sort of VPN through the hotspot could be made just as easy.

    --
    ..don't panic
  5. What about stealing credit cards? by sllim · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I know nothing. Lets be clear. I beg your forgiveness if this is a stupid comment.

    But...............

    Is there any way someone could steal credit cards by hiding a laptop within a hotspot sniffing packets and recording the transmissions?

    It occurs to me that you know that anytime someone boots up into this thing they are using a credit card. It is kind of hard to resist such an idea.

  6. havoc? by lpret · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Why would this be any different than any dsl connection? Because it's wifi?


    The most anyone could do is get past the authentication, so Verizon loses a little money, it's not a big deal. That certainly isn't havoc in my book.


    Now what would be interesting is to have that wifi dsl and then also do an ad-hoc network and allow several people to get on through their own little gateway. Brings down the cost quite a bit I'd think...

    --
    This is my digital signature. 10011011001
  7. Prelude to Bankruptcy Court by toxic666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Cheese and crackers, have you read the balance sheet lately? Verizon is up to its eyes in debt and its income won't cover financing costs, let alone the principal.

    From the MCI / Worldcom adventure, they realize that the courts are going to let telecoms go into bankruptcy and wipe out debt. Since all of that investment in the 1990's is only returning 2.5% -- not enough to cover the financing -- they may as well build all they can in new and potentially profitable technology (wireless) and grab broadband market share (cheap DSL) before declaring bankruptcy.

    They will continue to build infrastructure as long as there are creditors foolish enough to lend them money.

  8. $2000 laptop on the streets of NYC by gkanai · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not trying to be snarky but if you break out your TiBook on any random NYC street and spend more time looking at your screen than at the people around you, you'll have it jacked right quick. If Verizon thinks that people will be logging in while on the street, I doubt it. Maybe from the cafe nearby?