Slashdot Mirror
Texas State Parks Offer Wi-Fi
digrieze writes "Here's a story raising a holiday ruckus. Texas has started providing free Wi-Fi service at state parks, causing friction with the 'get away from it all' crew. Looks like a nice place to vacation to me."
The service will be free in the five Texas parks for three months; then TengoInternet, the wireless provider, will charge about $15 a day.
Err... doesn't exactly sound all that "free" to me.
"Hence, in order to have good coverage, you need to put antennas all over the park."
Just to prevent the future fires that the spelling police will start.
Antennas is correct when talking electronics.
Antennae is correct when talking biology.
- Source
AlexTheBeast
--
Tech-Recipes - Leave Your Computer Knowledge for Future Generations
The article doesn't mention it, but the parks are: Choke Canyon State Park (Calliham) near Three Rivers, Blanco State Park near Blanco, Balmorhea State Park near Toyahvale, Goose Island State Park near Rockport, and Ray Roberts Lake State Park (Isle du Bois) near Pilot Point. Reference: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/news/news/041220b.phtm l
I work for the texas state park and let me tell you how not happy people really are about this new service. What the article did not report was that we recieved a petition from 500 "naturalists" saying how strongly they object to this.
Naturally, we did what any good goverment body would do when handed a petition, we threw it away.
Bottem line is that technology is good and that this is going to make our lives and everyone else who uses the park but is not crazy, lives easier.
Progress is a good thing!!
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
I think its a combination of not wanting to see antennas and yuppies with laptops while trying to enjoy the great outdoors.
I see a lot of RVs in campgrounds with DirecTV. Why not Direcwav while you?re at it?
Because only trained technicians with the proper tools can do it. It's trivial to recieve a beam from a satellite. It's not so to transmit to a satellite.
Imagine trying to hit a specific period on a page of printed text with a laser pointer from a quarter mile away. Now imagine that you can't see the page. You have to rely on the reading of a signal meter to get the job done. Grandma and grandpa's RV isn't the proper platform to set up such a system.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
> Why not Direcwav while you're at it? It's $100
> setup and $50/month and all you need is a direct
> view of the southern sky (in TX I doubt that would
> be a problem - and no, I'm not even a customer of
> theirs).
FWIW, from the URL: http://hns.getdway.com/faqs.html#twentythree
Q: Can I put this system on a boat or in an RV?
A: No. The DIRECWAY system as supplied by HUGHES is for fixed installs only. Third-party providers do offer customized solutions for this requirement.
Do able, but not from DirectWay directly.
The wildlife will be fine.
As I genuine treehugger, I really don't see a problem with providing wireless into state parks.
Hell, with a satellite dish you can get anything you need, and we are already bombarded with enough excess radio to render us all infertile.
The WiFi Pandora is out of the box so to speak- bitching about it as akin to bitching about cell phones there. 'caus with a cell phone you could already find out about that blue-green warbler anyway.
The real reason I'm sure is that the state parks generate serious revenue in terms of camping, and the laptops are definitely coming along. So, serve the consumer becomes the rule.
I believe I read recently about Philadelphia considering going wireless- it's only a matter of time before WiFi coverage simply expands into areas we never even considered.
And of course any good bird watcher isn't checking the net- they're checking their Audobon guide like I did this morning to identify the Carolina Wren that arrived at the feeders in heavy snow.
I didn't reach for the laptop.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig