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Austin Becoming Wi-Fi Hot Spot
Omega1045 writes "The Austin Chronicle is running an interesting article on how Austin is fast becoming the Wi-Fi Capital of the Free (as in beer) Wireless World. With the industry standardization board Wi-Fi Alliance moving to Austin earlier this year, and groups like Austin Free-Net helping local businesses, the article quotes Austin has having more hotspots 'than anywhere else on the planet'. While this article does quite a bit of bragging about Austin, it also does a great job of highlighting how businesses and local non-profits can work together to promote and profit from free Wi-Fi Internet access. This provides an excellent model for other cities to follow using tools like Less Network."
The University of Texas at Austin makes up about 90% of the city. And, seeing as UT claims to have a fully wireless campus, is this such a shock? Or does 2+2 suddenly = 5?
C'mon, guys... simple logic. It's no grand colaborative effort, it's just a really big-ass University.
Maybe I'm just a sentimental fuddie-duddie ;-) but I don't understand why there is such large excitement about wireless Internet access. Its range isn't generally much better than those of nonwireless methods and nor are access speeds. In my past experiences with wireless networking I've been plagued by random connection drops and noisy data transfer. I sure hope things have improved or else Austin could be in for a world of hurt.
If you had the two computers in a room together, they'd probably be able to communicate. If no one moved, turned the light on, opened a window, got up to get a cup of coffee. I learned about wireless networking as an expensive pipe dream where it's just too flaky to be a practical solution. Hopefully by standardizing protocols like this we'll be able to get reliable through-the-air services and anakin murders padme in episode three in a fit of rage. Having an edge of a few hotspots in coffeeshops or parks is not likely to provide as much of an advantage as if the same money was spent keeping homeless off the streets, say.
Still, Wi-Fi, 2.6GHz, 802.11b, whatever, does sound promising. If it works as well as I hear it does, it will lead to a revolution in telecommunications in Austin. Whereas in the past we'd be trailing cables and leads everywhere - people will be able to walk up and just share data. I look forward to being able to share power wirelessly! Won't that be great? Hey, maybe Pick and Drop will become commonplace! (I'll always remember Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, though.)
I'm glad that there are some small subsidies being spent to enable local business to hop aboard. Being able to share inventory and computer usage tips will help them a great deal and I'll be watching Austin's statistics closely to see how well it copes with the proliferation of cheap computing and communications and networking for all.
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GNAA
The technology sounds good, but what about the side-effects of Bluetooth (AIDS, etc.)?
I know what you mean.
I live in a very and I mean VERY densly populated part of Manhattan. I started taking RF spectrum graphs and wireless mapping logs over 3 years ago..
You'll be floored by the ammount of spectral noise and almost exponential explosion of access points and other garbage on the band on this map
Do you know how nice it is to take your iBook, Vaio, whatever, down to the local park and have free high-speed WiFi access? Thanks to these people (and others!), some day you will.
How much nicer to leave the junk at home.
Less is a very bad way to set up a Hotspot. Its built on a very very old version of Red Hat.
Less also allows folks to remain dumb about how a HotSpot operates. Those who use it rather than using Debian or Susse remain clueless on how to fix problems when they happen, and they do happen.
Less is also tied to making money. The very core of Free Wireless is about being free, not in puttin more money in yet another pocket.
Less is not More, Less is less.
Learn More, Do Not Do Less.