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San Francisco's Got Free Wi-Fi

Posted by timothy on from the leave-your-heart-and-brain dept.

Carpoolio writes "If you're living in San Francisco, chances are you can connect, for free, to the BARWN -- the Bay Area Research Wireless Network. BARWN broadcasts an 802.11 signal from the top of a big hill near San Francisco, and anyone with a clear sight line to the signal can connect. Another set of wireless nodes are being placed around town by SFLan, making Wi-Fi available to tens of thousands of people."

4 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Overloaded? by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wow, that must be some magic access point. Mine can only handle about 30 people before it's saturated. How did they overcome that limitation of 802.11b?

  2. WiFi VOIP by tobes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It'll be nice when things like this become ubiquitous and someone starts manufacturing WiFi "cell" phones that use Vonnage or some such thing.

    It's been my experience that iChat has near cell sound quality, so having a small hardware iChat (or whatever you use) client with 802.11b access would be pretty sweet.

  3. Does anyone benchmark these? by vudufixit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Look, no one should complain about a "free" connection, but I'm curious to know how fast the typical user's connection really is. After all, the access point has to be connected to a terrestrial data line, which has limited bandwidth. Of course, the more people find out about this, the slower it gets for everybody, right? Does anyone know if those who provide "free" wireless access have an upgrade plan to handle the additional traffic?

  4. Monetize THIS! by Saeger · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "Tim says he set up the network because he wants to give Internet access to people who can't afford or access it, especially people living in Third World countries or depressed areas of other countries."

    The thing about free wireless (that I love) is that it keeps the Ashcroft-types up at night worrying about anonymous "terrorist" freespeech, and it gives the telco-types and the WISP-wannabes the middleman middle finger.

    Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it. It's similar to how FedEx thought they could own the Fax business in the 80s. Can't blame 'em for trying I guess.

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    Power to the Peaceful