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The State of Urban Wireless
mcabiling writes "Julian Priest
has released an excellent
study on the development of wireless broadband in London. The study
analyzes freenetworks versus commercial hotspot services and home wifi
usage.
The paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
license so you can also pick up from there and cover your city. There
is one for Paris
in the works.
Does anyone have any other similar studies of wireless cities ?"
Dublin, Ireland. Pop 1.3m
Free Hotspots: 0
Commercial Hotspots: ~10
Come to Ireland! Escape microwave cancer!
Oh wait..
Ireland pop ~4m. Mobile phones ~3.5m
May the Maths Be with you!
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
NetStumbler has had GPS-WiFi mapping for some time now. This is not new.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Isn't covering her up too late now?
"The problem with our economy is that our budget is balanced by people who aren't" - A.E.N.
the /. effect on london servers. (7 posts and the site has been /.ed)
A bunch of Tech Stuff
Google Cache
/.'ed already!?
*Sigh* Why doesn't slashdot mirror what it posts...
I know of at least 1 hot spot in Jerusalem, "Caffit" on Rehov Emek Rafaim in the German colony. To bad its a resturant I really don't like. I think the King David hotel has wireless but its not free.
I would love to know of more in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I know it's offtopic, but does anyone here know if it's possible to build a wireless network bridge with two Access Points? So that it's possible to connect two networks to eachother?
Here in Cleveland, I get WiFi access to the Internet (HTTP and SSL only) for $49/month in the downtown core and along the highway corridor.
I find it's great when I'm commuting (with someone anti-social driving) and when I have time to kill between seeing clients. The other massagists find it's great to keep with current events.
An associated Press article questions the commercial viability of WiFi in the U.S. Said one company that recently left the business after building only one hot spot, "Management believes that only Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers are currently successful in generating profits in the Wi-Fi industry, and service providers have yet to develop a profitable business model," With the ubiquity of computers in business, the modest price of broadband, and the very low price of WAPs, it seems that more people and businesses are simply giving WiFi away, leaving service providers with no profits.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I hope people in the US read this and learn about it. It seems like our networks are already becoming so mushed together that you have to check some wifi hot spot website every time before you go somewhere.
This overlapping seems like a fairly decent idea but considering alot of networks already require you to either register or prepay before using, it seems unlikely that they would want to "team up" for free wifi.
To be found on http://www.reseaucitoyen.be
i can't say enough good things about http://NYCwireless.org these guys have done an amazing job at building up a free as in beer wireless network all around New York City--take a look at the coverage map...Starbucks? hah!
Check out NYC Wireless for a pretty comprehensive map of wifi hubs. And these are just the reported ones! There's some serious coverage in our fair city...
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
Linksys
Cisco
I know many WAPs can also serve as a bridge.
Here is a link to a neat resource that can be used to find this info: Google
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
I bought a D-Link AP and I remember seeing the admin tool that same feature. Unfortunately I don't have two of these, but officially they support that.
I just recently moved to Korea, and one of the stats I've heard from the gov't is that greatest rate of per capita wireless availablilty,
Put identity in the browser.
The Austin Chronicle has a nice story on austin's free hotspots setup by, lessnetworks.com, austinfree
There seems to be a rather large push for free hotspots in Austin, TX. Its quite noticable that starbucks and TMobile have about the only pay hotspot in town. Its popping up in the strangest of places, for instance the dog and duck pub now offers wireless.
The June 8,2004, Wall Street Journal carried an article on "Airports Clash With Airlines Over Wi-Fi"(sorry, I don't have a link). Airlines want to use Wifi for both customer lounges and for wireless IT services -- think wireless data terminals for scanning and tracking baggage. But the airport terminal operators claim they own the airwaves and have the right control and sell wifi access.
This could impact regulation of WiFi in the U.S. As the article pointed out: If the FCC takes action, it could have broader implications for Wi-Fi's dissemination. That's because the airlines are asking the FCC a crucial question: whether a landlord has the right to bar tenants from setting up individual Wi-Fi networks. "This is about landlord-tenant rights and whether a landlord can dictate to a tenant how you use unlicensed frequencies," says Laura Smith, president of the Industrial Telecommunications Association, which has asked the FCC for guidance on behalf of the airlines.
I wonder if other building owners will outlaw tenant's wifi setups in favor of selling access to a landowner-run wifi networ.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I don't own a laptop, but I do own a Palm Tungsten T3 with built-in bluetooth, and I've found recently that I wished hotspots spoke Bluetooth. Has anyone started seriously deploying public (free or pay) hotspots with BT?
I'd think that all the bluetooth-enabled phones out there would be a natural target for this kind of service, where people could get internet surfing for cheaper than the on-air data rates the cell phone companies charge.
Or are their technical reasons why this won't work in practice? I really don't want to wait for the next Tungsten rev (4? 5? 6?) to finally build-in 802.11.... (and I have no interest in filling my *1* slot with a wifi card, esp. if it's got an externally-protruding antenna).
Is it still true that you can travel from the southern to the northern most point in Great Britain and be visually monitored the entire trip? Isn't the population of London the most technologically monitored and snooped-on population in the world, second only to China and a few other totalitarian countries?
Could someone remind me how I'm supposed to get excited when governments are doing something for the "common good"?
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
I live in Austin, and was pleased to read that we're going to see free wireless in new locations. And I don't mean more restaurants and pubs, but also in some of the local parks and public areas. I don't have any references to cite, but I recently read that Schlotzsky's (local sandwich shop that has offered free wireless access to customers for several years) has teamed up to set up wireless access in some of the parks near the downtown area. This might move beyond the downtown parks to include other locations, but for now it's another great step toward unwiring the city of Austin.
you know what sucks? someone putting up a commercial hotspot near your home or office. nyc is so dense to begin with, and now we have networks penetrating each other's walls. verizon is putting WiFi spots around the city - but only their own customers can use them. the 802.11b/g frequency range is limited - a couple people in one area setting up their own wifi networks quickly causes problems. luckily, i've only run into this at work, otherwise verizon would be having trouble keeping aluminum foil off a nearby hotspot.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
And don't forget that the World Wide War Drive 4 is currently running, from June 12th to 19th. WiGLE is doing file parsing and real-time stats and maps. WiGLE is the largest worldwide database of gps located wireless access points (currently at 1,214,408).
-- bobzilla
Wireless Geographic Logging Engine
We have a NLOS setup running with Navini Networks. However technically advanced or challenging the implementation is, customers are not willing to accept interruptions to their feed. In a nlos implementation as such, the service totally depends on the multipath signals, and we have found out to be most annoying to the customers are, the varying 'strong' spots. Technically, these are caused by changes to the surroundings (reflection path), weather and the antenna power. These can be acceptable to someone with fair knowledge of radio networks, but for the average Joe, having to move his CPE, or even changing its orientation for that matter, becomes a headache. How well can a nlos setup be done in a tightly packed urban area?
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
We've seen many urban wifi networks setup in Europe and the US, but what about Canada?
Wifi hotspots (Intentional or not, hehe) are pretty common in Edmonton and Calgary. Now we just needs some of these access points linked together.
Our little metropolis down here in Adelaide, Australia, has had a publically accessible Wireless network setup called Citilan for about a year now. It runs on 802.11b and it covers most of Adelaide CBD and some outer suburbs. I love it. Sunny day, sitting down by the river, notebook in front of me and working away through via the VPN. It's fantastic. Beats an office hands down!
Over at WiFiMaps.com, we have detailed street level maps of the US (Canada soon), and data uploaded from wardrivers from all over the world.
As an example, zoom-into Austin, TX, Seattle, WA, or your area.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I use the Linksys solution - it acts as a cable (albeit an expensive low-bandwidth cable).
It is a little finnicky (periodically both APs need to be rebooted when they decide that certain MAC addresses are stale) but it works.
The Personal Telco Project in Portland, Oregon, is setting up free internet access points all over town (mostly in coffee shops), and invites home users to open their networks up, as well. There was a writeup about it in the most recent Willamette Week (weekly alternative newspaper based in Portland).
Movie theaters and other centers of idiotic greed have jamed cellphones and pagers. While I can admit that hearing cellphones go off in movie theaters is annoying, the problem rests with users not the phones. How would you like your doctor to not get a vibrating page because he was on call at a movie theater that blocked calls without notice? Interfering with licensed cell phone frequencies should earn such clueless people a stiff FCC fine. The public owns the spectrum, not the theater.
There was another case I remember, of a ball park that thought it could override the FCC and prevent people from setting up free wireless access within range of the park. They wanted to sell access to their "captive" audience. The mistake being made, once again, is that the landlord somehow owns the spectrum inside the park. They are wrong, the public owns the spectrum regardless of what the ball park tries to set up.
The airport is a brilliant place for greedheads to try to take ownership of the spectrum. Real and bogus safety concerns can be raised in such a technical environment. These concerns can easily be twisted into "property rights" propaganda. More importantly, there are multiple agencies who would claim to represent the public interest. If the greedheads work this right, they can leverage the effort of local, state and other federal agencies. They will all bombard the FCC and might even try to seize authority over the spectrum for themselves. It will make news and bullshit will spill forth into the minds of the public.
To get an idea of how backward this is, ask yourself what rights you have to the spectrum on your own property. Can you control the flow of radio waves into your own property? No, you have no right to demand that TV, radio and other broadcasters cease to transmit because you don't want their signal in your house. Nor can you charge them for a chicken wire Faraday cage. That's reasonable. (Unreasonable laws exist which attempting to prevent you from listening to some of the broadcasts and sharing your information about how to do so.) Broadcasters include people with cell phones and wifi adapters.
Blocking broadcasts will cause great economic harm for the benefit of a few operators. Regulation in this spirit will thwart any kind of mesh network building and preserve the obsolete natural monopoly enjoyed by incumbent telco providers. The most perverse aspect of this is that "property owners" may be convinced to go this way by the promise of profit from subscription wifi. What are the chances that profits from wifi and other wanna be telco services will ever be greater than the savings of simple co-operation and mesh networking?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention the first time I read the post, and I thought I saw "Judas Priest has released..."
"You will soon be more aware of your growing awareness." - My first recursive fortune cookie!
Rated by Intel (whose research headquarters is in the metro area) as the most unwired city in America. Personal telco (http://www.personaltelco.net/) has over 100 hotspots around the city, with a lot of cool cafes hooked up (free service, of course).
Also, there is the fact that Linus Torvalds is moving to Portland soon - he just bought a house here.
Guess it's going to be Portland vs. Seattle pretty soon! Can't wait to see the bombs falling soon!
I know someplace in Arizona which is wireless. Wireless, waterless, bathroomless, phoneless....
:-)
(From someone who just got back from a trip where he was reminded what "Communing with Nature" is really all about!)
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.