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Wi-Fi by Rail, Bus or Boat
securitas writes "The New York Times' Glenn Fleishman writes about the growth of 802.11x WiFi wireless Internet access on commuter rail, bus and ferry boat now that it's commonly available in restaurants and coffee shops. The article also has an illustration by Al Granberg of some of the techniques used to achieve ubiquitous WiFi in motion."
It's only a natural extension of the hotspots popping up everywhere. Just a matter of time until anywhere with cell phone service will have net service... with the right provider.
I'll never make my computer vulnerable for attacks by anyone who just happens to drive by with a laptop and a wireless.
I'm much more interested in 10Gbit ethernet over copper.
I know that the Japanese national railroad was working with Cisco to do WiFi a couple years ago. It was a real engineering challenge because the access points had to do handoff and authentication quickly enough to keep the trains computers on the network (this was initially for secure communications with computer systems on the train, commuter access was to come later). When your cells are only a couple hundred meters across and the train is moving at 300+ kmph.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I work for a relatively small public transit company in So Cal. All of our busses are already 802.11b enabled. As soon as they pull into the yard, they connect to an FTP server, and send reports containing the fare information, passenger data, and other things. It also updates the automated stop announcements, and anything else that we need to update.
As of now, the 802.11b isn't accessible to the public, but we're looking into making it available.
Interesting point. I think people are relying too much on e-mail and IM to communicate. Now with Wi-Fi everywhere, people will be sitting alone tapping on their keyboard everywhere. On top of that, people are working longer hours, and IMO getting less work done. I have yet to meet a person who has actually gotten any real work done sitting at a coffee shop. I know, I know, you work all the time in coffee shops, but I haven't met you yet... Why must we now have to introduce another way of distraction to places where people are accustomed to relaxing?..
What about the commuter that wants to take a nap on the train after a hard day's work. Does he now have to st there listening to you tap on the keyboard as you vainly try to finish an Excel speadsheet.
As a whole, i think it's not a great thing that Wi-Fi is everywhere.
Here in the UK we have Wi-Fi deployment now operating on the East Coast rail line. Rather than caching data in tunnels, the train switches to GPRS and is supposed to maintain its connection to the net using the mobile phone networks which have had the foresight to start providing coverage through tunnels on main railway lines.
Well I'm another Wi-Fi on the train user, somewhat irregularly but I can say at least on the PointShot trial that runs on VIA rail between Toronto and Montreal there is no need to limit oneself to "small text files and e-mail" the performance varies as you roll but it seemed to be better than dialup at all times.
If the combination of trains (heavy and light rail) and buses that I spend 4 hours a day on had Wi-Fi, I could actually:
1. Reduce my work day by 4 hours, allowing for the commute time to be used productively and spending less time in the office
or
2. Add 4 billable hours to my timesheet if I am a contract developer with VPN access (which I am).
"I'm a karate man. Karate mans bleed on the inside."
My favorite part of the article:
In the United States, nearly six million people commute daily by public transportation, according to the Department of Transportation.
With an estimated population of 293,027,571 in July 2004 (from the cia world factbook)that means around 98% of the united states doesn't use public transportation.
Anyone else have an estimate for some place in Europe? Denmark maybe?
Lufthansa also offers wireless access on some of their flights. I flew from Munich to Los Angeles two weeks ago and used it. They have a free portal you can use or complete Internet access for $30 (which was too much for me to pay).
Honk if you're horny.