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."

Comments

And I still won't be able to get DSL

[Snowdog668]

I guess it's nice if you live near the park and run wireless. How I wish that SBC would move their ass so that I could get DSL though. When I moved into my current house four years ago Ameritech (which got taken over by SBC) told me that all the hardware was in place and was being tested and I could expect DSL in my area within a couple of months. Four years later and as of Monday, no DSL. My town's government got sick of answering questions so they sent out a flyer basically saying that yes, the hardware is there but SBC is in a pissing contest with the feds about who gets to co-locate so they refuse to turn the system up. It's funny, in the Chicago area where I live SBC's new ad campaign shows them starting to lay fiber back in the '80's and how broadband is all over the area. I guess they're trying to show how ahead of the game there were back in the day. Here I am, 30 miles north of the city and no DSL. I have to laugh whenever the commercial comes on. :)

Re:Get your Free Stuff Here

[Phekko]

That's a silly thing to say. I'm writing this reply on a Linux machine (Gentoo if you must know) using a Mozilla browser. All the programs installed on this 'puter are free. None raised the price of my comp by a cent. Yes, someone has paid for the time and effort to make the software (either with money or with blood and/or sweat) but for me they were completely free.

Yes, I'm sure that in the case of a baseball field they do stuff for a hefty profit and not out of the kindness of their hearts, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who genuinely, truly give out stuff for free, too. See, even though, say, RIAA is a greedy, bloodsucking organization there still can be other organizations that aren't. If you don't believe stuff can be free, I'm sure you paid for your web browser, right? I didn't pay for mine and it's still legal. Weird, huh?