Slashdot Mirror
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."
So you can get free wi-fi...
.
.
.
but you have to live in Texas.
-Letter
The abundant Wi-Fi saturation in the area is actually causing interference between access points. The over-propagation in the area is incredible.
Props to GNAA!
I'm moving to Austin. Err, once I move out of my parent's basement.
The world is ready for a new way of doing business and living life. It's not about more money and more stuff. It's about knowing the difference between a life well-lived and a life that's purchased. It's about how much you can do with what you have.
(i.e., free Wi-Fi == good)
http://www.wirelessleiden.nl/english/ is well in the lead with over 50 nodes (not just hotspots) on churches, schools, offices and other tall buildings :-) And all open source to boot (fetch yours at http://wleiden.webweaving.org:8080/svn/node-config ) or persue the configuration http://www.wleiden.net/cgi-bin/g_list.pl and actual status: http://uuu.wirelessleiden.nl/nodemap.jpg.
Dw.
This won't mean much soon. I live in Portland, and wireless is everywhere. It seems the west coast in general is pretty wired at this point.
In about a year or so, this will be a moot point anyway. Everyplace will have wireless broadband soon enough....
What you're saying might be true for towns say, Bryan College Station in Texas, where Texas A&M is located.
That may have been closer to true 15 years ago, but not now. With the huge expansion of Austin during the dot com years, the UT Campus doesn't make up anywhere near 90% of the city. Heck, it didn't make up 50% 15 years ago. Have you been to Austin, and if so, did you make it out of downtown?
The "Northern Coridor" up highways US 183 and IH 35 are where many of the tech companies are located (IBM, Motorola, Dell), and where many of the techies live. It is hard not to find a coffee shop in the this area that doesn't have wi-fi, at least from my experience. And I would be willing to bet most of those campuses are WiFi.
In closing, RTFA.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
You can hope, or you could get involved with a local WiFi club. I am already going to try to seek these guys out (Austin Free-Net) after reading the article.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Portland's Personal Telco Project has well over 100 free hotspots throughout the city. Austin Free Net has 36 (based on their listing of hotspots which have libraries listed from 1-22 and other places as A-O). The city of Portland is also working, in cooperation with the local university, the city government, and various megacorps (such as Intel) to blanket the entire city with free WiFi (see Free For All).
But, it doesn't matter much who wins. What's great is that independent groups are popping up all across the country (and presumably, the planet). I know that Portland, Boston, and Austin all have growing free WiFi organizations, and I'm sure there are others.
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.
Let me tell you, it's nice. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from the 21st century.
802.11 B isn't the way to go anymore either. Move on over to 802.11 g and experience faster data transfer. The basics are that you have to know what kind of monster you are trying to attack here. What kind of building do you live in? Do you have copper pipes? What about plaster walls? Do you have a microwave oven and a keg-a-rator next to where you are going to be surfing the web? If so, you need to step you the transmission a little. Do some googling on boosting your signal.
I don't want to flame you, but you can't kill a technology that has tons of potiential and may alter the future only because you have had some bad experiences. For all you know, it could have been that 2.4 ghz cordless phone you bought at Best Buy that killed your connection. Or maybe you may leave in a nuclear fall out bunker. I bet a Wi-Fi WAP wouldn't transmit 10 ft in one of those.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
I live in a small town -with wal*mart being our nearest retail store- and I chuckle every time I see their WiFi cards, routers, etc sitting and gathering dust.
The nearest hotspot is most likely 12 miles away!
Additionally, and as someone else has pointed out before, UT Austin does not make up 90% of the city. Austin, TX has almost a quarter of a million square miles, according to this site, whereas UT Austin only has 0.5 square miles associated with it, according to this site (you can do the unit conversion from acres to square miles yourself).
a friend and i were driving among the streets of austin (not just downtown or near UT, but in and around other places) and it is possible to simply jump from hotspot to hotspot while waiting for the light at an intersection or while driving around.
They're everywhere. Virtually every decent pub, restaurant and coffee shop here has free wireless.
-
Here comes the child porn surfers driving around with no pants on.
I chuckle every time I hear about "wireless" networks because every time I wander into starbuck's or any other spot with wireless everyone with a computer is jockeying for the power outlets. There usually aren't nearly enough outlets for the number of people who need power. Heck, when people bring laptops into one-hour meetings in my workplace they are usually jockeying for outlets too.
So, maybe we're seeing a large deployment of "one less wire" networks, but until battery life gets much better, I don't think it's fair to say wireless. Most laptops and pda-type gadgets are lucky to get two hours of "real" usage in the field. By "real" I mean actually using the laptop or gadget on the wireless to surf the internet while, for example, playing music. (Everyone in these coffee shops seems to have headphones plugged into their laptop when I see them.)
Just an observation, not a critique on the article.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Austin's becoming a hot hot spot because it's still a comparatively small city with the likes of New York and such.
Imagine stretching WiFi from the Bronx to JFK Airport, and I don't find it surprising that Austin is so hot. Some small city was bound to become a hot hot spot, and Austin happened to have good luck.
If the princetonreview.com figure and the conversion by http://www.onlineconversion.com/area.htm are correct, UT Austin does only have ~.56 square miles (357 acres). Have you been there? Most (nearly all?) of the buildings have basements, some as many as 4 floors down, and there's many, many levels above ground in nearly all of the buildings. UT Austin is not designed like Texas Tech; it's designed to take up a small amount of space. It started as a mere 40 acres, just north of Austin, and has been enveloped by the city. Only a portion of the students live on campus.
Having just moved to the Austin area from Silicon Valley....
:)
Wireless is very popular here because they get more lightning strikes per week than Kali gets in a year! Having everything connected with wires is like playing russian roulette. I'm going to need at least 3 more APC UPS's.
On the upside... The BBQ is excelent, and gas/diesel/rent/food/etc... is cheap.
Chicken fried steak w/ bisquits and gravey.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
The ECE dept here at Univ Texas-Austin just opened a newly $1.5 million remodeled lab for the Wireless Networking & Communications Group. Austin is moving up the ladder in WiFi. Here's the WNCG webpage: WNCG.
It's not as baffling as it sounds. Setting up a WiFi hotspot doesn't cost that much these days. A company that provides free wireless can obviously have an advantage over similar companies that don't have free WiFi when catering to patrons that are looking for WiFi. Just as some travelers may want to stay at a hotel that has a free pool as opposed to a hotel without one, a hotel (or coffee shop, or...) can draw more people simply because they have free WiFi. So for minimal cost, you can fill that room in your hotel or have more people stopping at your restaurant. Profit!
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
...and WiFi the Austin Moontowers.
Austin may be small by comparison with NYC but it's a major metro area compared with most places.
Still, your comment made me wonder if wi-fi could be the basis for an economic development model for smaller cities & towns. I wonder if any of the profs at UT are looking at that aspect of the Austin "model"...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
For those of you interested in wardriving or what's out there, here's a look at Austin Texas from a wardriver's point of view.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
2. More people come to your business
Simple, huh?
This article comes just in time! I bought Linksys WRT54G for my home network and I'm intterested to open it for my fellow net users, BUT. As I have experience in hosting / server administration, I'm concerned of security. Mostly MY security, to prevent my AP becoming a source of spam. I think I should set up firewall to limit smtp-traffic, but what's sufficient? I think the problem is common with other free internet access points / cafes, schools etc. How is it done?
I do know how to set up firewall / routing / bandwidth control, but which rules to use? Any points to good sources of information?
It's actually working out pretty well. Starbucks is getting no draw whatsoever from their wi-fi installations which are run by T-mobile. The locally owned shops like Halcyon, Little City, and Mozart's are packed almost every day with paying customers who drop by to drink coffee, surf, and check their email. Wi-fi costs them little more than their initial installation plus monthly ISP fees, and they draw in more customers.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Is Wi-Fi big in the states? Just how big?
I'm finding all this coverage a little puzzling.
I haven't heard of a single Wi-Fi hotspot in this country(Ireland).
May the Maths Be with you!
Move to Austin and crash w/ a friend.
Apply for UT or ACC get admitted.
Grow a pony tail.
Get a job at HEB or Fiesta or Central
Market.
Wear a belly pack.
Get a Student Loan (2k).
By a cheapo laptop and used bike.
Default your loan.
Get your own place in the crappy
side of town (East I-35).
Finally get your back pack, your belly
pack wait 3 hrs for the dillo bus
down town. Go to cafe on South Congress.
Go to the bathroom and change your sweat
drenched shirt and remove the fire ant
that's been chewing your skin inside your
sock all the way from Ben White.
Finagle an AC outlet. Log-On to Slashdot
and brag about Austin is intensity in
ten cities..cool dude!
Buy Chai tea with the last dollar
til payday(bring extra bag for refill).
- these are not the droids you are looking for -