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SBC Park Plans A Giant 802.11 Hotspot
Numeric writes "Baseball games won't be as boring at SBC Park, home of the San Fransico Giants, because they are offering "one of the largest hotspots", according to this Yahoo article.
SBC Communications provides DSL and wireless connectivity to business and consumers. I wonder if Minute Maid Park will offer free orange juice or even better Citizen Ball Park could offer free money! Its nice to see the staduim sponsor offering more than just the name sake of their business."
LostCluster writes "The San Jose Business Journal adds the details that the WiFi access will be called SBC's Freedom Link, and and be based on 121 access points spread across the park. Access will be free during the 2004 season, but will cost $7.95 per day or $19.95 per month starting next year."
This will be just another excuse to raise the price of hot dogs and beer.
Is this something I would really want to use. Who would surf the net while watching a game. Why go to a game then.
Evolution or ID?
I guess that might be good to those interested in online betting. Since with the instant availability of statistics and easy access to the betting site they might develope more "who catches the next ball" type of bets.
I know you're being a wise ass, or perhaps not and you simply don't understand baseball. Whatever, the sport is clearly not for you. However, for those of us who happen to love baseball this is an interesting idea. It would be nice to look up stats and information during a game about the players on the field. What's Pedro's ERA right now, not after the last game? How well does he pitch against right-handed batters vs. left handed hitters?
Baseball is statistics, plain and simple. Being able to grab these numbers on the spot right to your PDA would be neat. Currently I rely on a small radio but I'm only given the stats Jerry Remy and Sean McDonough want to tell me, not the ones I might be more interested in. Maybe Fenway will get something like this soon but I'm not holding my breath.
I do go to ballgames to watch them. However, a ballgame takes 4+ hours off my evening, and having the ability to check e-mail once in that timeframe is sometimes invaluable. People use cell phones in the ballpark, and nobody complains...how is e-mail different?..
My only problem with Microsoft is the severity of bugs in their software.
While it is nice that it is free this year, I have a hard time seeing a lot of people willing to pay $8/day or $20/month next season to have wireless access at only one location; especially a baseball stadium.
Maybe I'm just short sighted or unable to comprehend the demographic they expect, but I don't see a big market for this once che charges kick in.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
You didn't even have to read the article for this one: the wireless access will be a separate charge next year. This year it will be positioned as a loss leader: get people using/hooked on the product for free, then start charging (also called the drug dealer's sales model).
And so what if you don't want to use it? Don't use it - there, that was easy. It's possible someone will. I don't want to drive a dump truck around but I understand there are people with different needs that might be able to use a dump truck. You != everyone.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Airlines already treat every laptop coming through the gates like it's packed with C4. Aside from the potentially real risk of someone disguising a bomb in a laptop, the headache of searching hundreds of laptops at the gates is enough to tank this idea.
I have two issues here; both having to do with security.
The first is how many of the folks using this will relize that there may be those running air-snort, or whatever the heck it's called, in the park? If I remember, the WEP is easy to crack (may not be real time cracking, but a few hours later on a top end machine back at home after airsnort records a ballpark full of packets on a 20gb drive).
A SBC size stadium full of airsnorted IP packet traffic may have some interesting gold nuggets
(business deals, insider information, credit card numbers, etc) especialy during a business day or evening.
The second is how do they intend to enforce payment? Again, if you have airsnort or airpeek or whatever, can't you find out what the SSID is and then get on?
Even if it has to do some sort of authentication
based on the MAC address before it hands out dhcp, can't someone wait until the guy in the bleacher
next to them is through/goes to the bathroom/goes to the concession stand/takes a nap; then does a man-in-the-middle (assuming both the MAC and the
allready-dhcp'd-ip) and get on? Perhaps, now that they are using someone else's identity; go ahead and PTP a bunch of people's music; or surf kiddie porn; or whatever?
Personally, when I go to events like this, I go totaly empty handed. No laptop, no cellular, no bags, nothing.
Cleara