Slashdot Mirror
Philadelphia Considers Free Citywide Wireless Access
The Associated Press is running an story about Philadelphia's city goverment seriously considering creating the world's largest hotspot.
"For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot....the city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged by commercial providers"
The parent post is not flamebait. It refers to an earlier Slashdot story about a guy that was hassled by a cop for using a Public Library's wireless from outside the library. I can't believe I'm summarizing a story that appears FOUR stories down on the front page.
Where I'm from, the meter readers are outsourced and are far from unionized. My brother-in-law worked for http://www.accuread.com/
That might explain what our city did... sort of. They installed wireless metres in all homes an businesses. However, they have a very limited range. So instead of the metre reader having to walk into my yard and read the metre, they just drive passed and read the correct frequency to get my usage for the month.
i'm no expert, but i recently was had a webinar with AirFortress (www.fortresstech.com). pretty slick stuff!! 3 seperate authentication methods per your question. it's a firewall + ACL server + management server + client software. their client list is no joke either. no, i'm not an employee, just someone who has wondered the same thing.
I recently moved to a suburb of the Twin cities called Chaska, MN. Right when I moved they were rolling out their implementation of a town-wide wireless network. Their solution involved handing out wireless bridges to customers and sell service for $15 dollars a month.
Service was poor to nonexistant for the first three months. But as more residents bought in to the idea and turned on their bridges, access speeds and reliability greatly improved. Now its much faster than dial-up and I can even play a few games online.
Go Gusties
Treat the wireless link just like you do any insecured network -- either through a VPN or a SSH tunnel or the equivalent. With end-to-end encryption you'll be far far safer than you'd be with any "security" that only applies to the very-tiny wireless part of your link.
> There are however a LOT of suburbs that are
> considered Philadelphia as well
No there aren't. The City of Philadelphia is very well defined. The "suburbs" (Delaware, Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery counties) obviously wouldn't be subject to this legislation because the City Council and John Street only have jurisdiction over the city itself. Now, whether they chose to apply it just to Center City is a different story, but there are no "suburbs that are considered Philadelphia." Either you live in the city or you don't, and if you don't, this doesn't apply to you.
We are using a mesh technology that they say will guarantee 300k anywhere in the city. So far we have had some difficulties getting it working properly due to tree foliage and buildings. It feels like we have been putting the repeaters on every light pole!
Fredericton, New Brunswick has had this implemented since last autumn. Wireless G service is available for free throughout the entire downtown core courtesy of the city. They are slowly expanding the service area, too. I've used it on a friends notebook and it is blazingly fast.
University - a box of academia nuts.
It's a difficult challenge, for sure, especially with anonymous access. OTOH, most/many municipalities have accepted some level of this risk already with open access library PCs and may have addressed this with some form of security policy (for what's that's worth). This also seems -- to me -- to be a valid place for an IDS (looking primarily at traffic outbound from this wireless segment and triggered to shun the user originating these attacks). Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's security and thus, by definition, not perfect. And I don't care too much if I accidentally DoS one of those wireless users.
Not addressed here are things like users accidentally/deliberately attacking other users across the wireless, let alone the privacy issues others have talked about, etc.
There are other technical issues with securing this; segregation of client and data network, etc, etc -- the classic wireless issues.
Here in NM, Rio Rancho did this in certain areas -- Albuquerque, not be upstaged by their western neighbour, deployed it at the airport and in the centre of downtown. There is no user authentication, so tracking of activities is very hard unless you catch them in real time (see above on IDS), but I believe there is some level of firewalling between this and the City network. (I haven't poked at it too terribly hard, mind you.)
I have lived in Philadelphia my whole life. We already have free wifi at Love Park, The Reading Terminal, and a few other major places. If you ever visit just look for the big "Wireless Philly" signs at some areas, they are like 3' x 3' in size and also have instructions for the non-/. crowd. The bandwidth is excellent even with a bunch of other folks on at the same area as you. Its good enough to play Enemy-Territory:) Having free wi-fi is awesome and makes lunch even better. I read about this city wide plan and I really hope they go through with it. It'd be so great. And all the other cities should hope we do this too, cause if we do and it turns out successful, you can bet many others will follow.
Regards,
Steve
That's out of their jurisdiction. The city's system would still have to comply with FCC regulations regarding interference etc.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Ignore all of the previous responses (although they did have some neat ideas). I live in philly and we already have wifi at Love Park, the Reading Terminal, and some other popular areas. Its all free and its an ever expanding project, but only recently have they thought about going city wide. Anyway, there is no encryption, no authentication, no anything, you turn your computer/pda/{wireless device} and do what you have to. The bandwidth is really good, even with many people using it. And its convenient as hell, I mean you literally just sit down browse the web,or play enemy-territory :), and leave when your done. No registration/free registration/ or anything. I guess you could say thats a bad thing but if you ever did anything really illegal I guess they could kind of track you with your MAC address. Personally, I prefer how they have it set up, its keeping costs at the lowest, while maximizing accessibility. There is little administration costs, they set up the access point and let it go. It only ever needs to be looked at again if it malfunctions. You don't have to pay someone to look at logs all day, or block sites and make sure people don't get around it, or explain to people why they can't connect to certain things, or why a service they want won't work because some port is blocked. The wireless access is "just there" to use at your will like many public services payed for by taxes(although, I guess you could say at your own risk). Nothing is blocked (as far as I know) So far its been a major success, I could only see them requiring authentication if illegal activity got out of hand.
Regards,
Steve
I agree. I used to work in Philly proper, and they have a city employment tax of something like 4.5%, which is absurd, especially considering how much the traffic on the Schulkyll Expressway sucks. When I got a job out in the suburbs, it was like an instant 4.5% pay raise.
IP addresses have always been tracable. Believe me. I've been on both end and the middle of such traces.
So, there's a way that the authorities could trace some offence back to you if you committed it over a link from an Internet cafe that you paid for in cash?
So I guess there is savings in doing it automatically, but none of that will be included in savings for citywide wireless access.
That's entirely not true. Both my mother-in-law and my wife and I have RCN cable, internet, and phone in Philly. Granted, their service is not available anywhere more than a few miles outside of the city, but to say that RCN "gave up and went away" is a complete fallacy. This is a shame because RCN's internet service is 100x better than Comcast's and the speeds I've been getting just with their base plan are absolutely phenomenal. If you live near the city (I'm near 69th Street station) check them a out...they were cheaper than Comcast last I looked too.
yes. as mentioned in this article, the plan is to have people register for an account and log in to use the service.
I work for the Hospital of the University of PA in west Philly.
For the most part, if you have a cell phone in the hospital, you can't get any signal unless you are within 5-10 feet of a window. I doubt any wireless network set up by Philly would reach deep inside the hospital.
They also already have wireless networks installed inside.