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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."
causing friction with the "get away from it all" crew
You don't go to a state park and stay within wifi range (I assume their RV/tent sites in the main campground) if you want to "get away from it all". If you want to get away from it all you go backpacking in remote areas of the park or the State. Amenities like showers, flush toilets, electric hookups, and swimming pools doesn't exactly put you in the "roughing it" category.
So far, the vast majority of users are conducting business, and have both the tools and the ability to pay the average daily service fee of $10 to $20, says Phillip Redman, a research vice president at Gartner. But there are also a growing number of free Wi-Fi hot spots, which make the cost of connectivity irrelevant. And with proliferating access and declining price, the user's physical location has become less important than ever before.
I see a lot of RVs in campgrounds with DirecTV. 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). If you're a serious "snow bird" RV fan it would sound like the best way to go. Hell, you could undercut TX State Parks and offer wifi for $5 or less. I can't see the $15/day pricetag honestly... The article mentions that they realize that putting wifi into the wilderness would be difficult due to terrain/etc and would require numerous antennae throughout the park but they mention that TX state parks have great RV/tent campsites that will have coverage... So why the high cost?
I bring my hiptop with me when we go "camping" but I generally only check my email twice a day from it and make phone calls only when necessary. It is nice to have along but I'm more for enjoying my freedom when I'm "camping".
I just can't see businessmen making it a regular practice of saving money on their overnight stays by using a state park campground and firing up their $15/day wifi when they can probably pay $15/night more (with parking fees, camping fees, and wifi fee) at a hotel and get it free.
YMMV.
I hate to be a spelling Nazi, but I believe you misspelled "taxpayer-funded".
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Why does this cause friction? Can't they simply NOT use the WiFi service?
Portland, North Dakota Puppies
I don't understand why the "get away from it all" types would be so upset about this, it greatly enhanses the experience of a park. Think of how much more intereactive it makes the whole experience. You see a deer, you take a picture, upload it to your friends so they can check it out. You see some other form of wildlife...or plant and you pull up wikipedia to try and figure otu what it is.
I say bravo to texas!
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
They'll be calling George up as soon as they hear this. After all, they probably were already "planning" to implement this themselves.
Boss'll be like "Hey wtf, you had internet, you could have helped us out!"
I don't see what all the brouhaha is about. Provided they make the antennae subtle, or even better, only install them in the more "touristy" areas (as opposed to the "primitive camping" areas), I can't imagine how this could take away from the camping experience.
If you don't take your laptop, it doesn't affect your "be one with nature" goal...also, at least WiFi usage is a quiet activity (assuming it isn't used to blast streaming music). I imagine I'd be more irritated with loud, obnoxious, drunk campers than quiet, laptop-using ones.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
Technology is not good. Technology is also not bad. Technology is, and that's probably the most you can say about it.
I think the part people are very nervous about (myself included) is that while they are out trying to enjoy the seclusion and serenity of the outdoors, someone else will be enjoying it while loudly playing Doom with the accompanying noise and such. I admit I'm a lot more negative on the possibility of cell towers than I am wifi, but it's basically the same thing.
What I can't understand is why would someone go so far away from their homes just to reproduce their home environment? Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I was in Utah a few months ago in an area positively reknown for its night-time views, and it upset me that the first thing some people would do when it got dark was turn on a 1M candle-power unhooded flood light at their campsite.
Believe it or not, many people actually dislike the confinements of their city lives and are weary of making their escape location just another tourist spot. I know I am.
At that price I don't really need the Internet that bad.
:)
Have you seen the prices charged by hotels? They charge $5.95 for the first 15 minutes and $0.25 for each minute there after. What the park is charging is an all-you-can-eat special.
Besides, we all know that techies who are disconnected from the umbilical cord of life will simply die out in the wilderness under that big yellow light in the blue room.
Speaking as someone not opposed to this, but definitely not enthusiastic, I would say people are probably against this because they perceive that people who will use this service will probably be the same kinds of inconsiderate folks who play loud obnoxious music in family tent-camping areas, race ATVs up and down hiking paths, and bring other intrusive and obnoxious technology-related habits to the campgrounds.
;>
It's not about controlling what other people do; it's about personal space. A lot of people who are real fans of being "always connected" are extremely insensitive about personal space, and regularly infringe on other people. They don't seem to need much personal space, and can't comprehend those who need more space.
Yeah, I can choose not to use the service, but I'd feel more comfortable about it if there were designated "no wi-fi" areas. Also, i leave my notebook and cell phone at home when I go camping. I prefer that my coworkers have the perception that I am completely inaccessible.
And yes, I get a -lot- of weird looks from my geek friends when I tell them I left my notebook at home for 2 weeks.
I wonder how many people will go to a state park on the condition that it has wi-fi. Frankly, I don't think this service would exist except for the profit this company will be making, and I'm sure the state will take a cut of that. Operating costs will be next to nil (a meager connection and maintenance checks), and the charges are sizable.
c- Tax payers will wonder what the hell they are doing putting wi-fi out in the middle of nowhere instead of giving wi-fi to rural Texas... where it might actually improve quality of life.
There are only a few problems.
1) Do you have any idea how big the state of Texas is? Come drive around in central (rural) Texas for a few days and you'll start to get a sense of it. Providing WiFi to the 'Middle-of-Nowhere' Texas would be a monumental task to say the least. The majority of the time in 'Middle-of-Nowhere' Texas there isint even line of sight to your closest neighbor even if you were standing on your roof. The headcount of base stations you would have to install would be insane, even if they had a several mile range. It would be much easier/cheaper to just run DSL to everyone in Texas, and thats a crazy thought.
2) Even if Texas was, in some very very very long ranging future plans, thinking of providing state wide wifi coverage, you cant just up and start installing a network that big. Its never been done. You would have to start in some small publically available, controlled environment where you could see the problems and issues that would arrise in a large public WiFi installation. Say, places like State Parks and TXDOT Road Side Rest stops. Hmm.. sounds like that is what they are doing to me.
3) Quality of Life - I have to say, most people who live in middle of nowhere Texas are either A) Not poor. (They moved there to get away from the crowds and traffic of the city) B) Happy living where they are and could give a rats ass about wireless internet. or C) Are Farmers, which for the most part can afford an internet connection on their own and dont need (or want) the states help with it.
State wide internet in Texas from Wifi is just a dumb idea. I'd rather spend the billions of dollars on the education system.
My sig can beat up your sig.
(and we travel to campground for about 90% of our three-season travel here in the NE)
;-)
is that in the well-equipped private CGs you have a post or a tree that feeds you water, main power, phone and cable TV. Granted the phone is hardly used anymore with cell service being what it is, but they need to accommodate the campers, and with many of them being pop-ups and smaller vans, the line is blurred between a tent and vehicle site.
The state CGs are somewhere in the middle, and the feds are a patch of land, a painted number on a stone or post and a fire ring. They often do not have even showers (Acadia for instance has none - there are several well known shower services on your way back to camp).
There are times when I want to be at Seawall, lock the car for the week, and go without the bare minimum. Ride, splash, walk, eat, sleep. Then there's times when we'll bring everything including the laptop, digital camera, iPod, hole up in a private CG with free hot showers, power at the site and now I can't wait to use the new peltier fridge and not have to toss a coin about the safety of the food after five days.
Network access is just like the other things - but now they can deploy them without running yet another wire that can break to each site. And the states and feds who had few or no wire services to sites can add this without digging trenches to each site.
And here here on the generator issue - this is far down on the scale of annoying things in a campground - its way below generators and way WAY below 2AM returns on Harleys. In many campgrounds the most annoying things tend to be alcohol-fueled, and I don't mean sterno stoves.
A lot of campers believe they can simply replace their house with thin nylon walls and carry on like they were still inside an opaque, soundproof dwelling. How wrong they are. I'd swap laptops for boom boxes any day.
People camp for many reasons. To 'get a way from it all' (you never really do) to be in a more beautiful place (Passaconaway looks a bit better than RT 93 Exit 8) to live more simply but with some smarts. Each camper dials in the amount of those things they need. Good. We already bring a little / lot of our world with us when we camp - the technology in the stoves and GPS and NOAA and EPIRBs and watches we need isn't deemed terrible - they help. If my laptop doesn't disturb anyone else, and it helps me stay in touch and know about weather and going-on, great. There's a big difference between listening to the 90-min frequency NOAA voicecasts and seeing 15-min old color doppler radar. You'd be a fool to go to sea without weatherfax and several kinds of radio capabilities - ditto land nowadays.
Just don't pee on the wired tree.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
honestly I think it ruins the point as far as state parks are concerned (connecting with nature and blah blah), but being from Houston I think it would ROCK for Houston's CITY parks. There have been many a nice days (fall/spring have perfect weather usually) where I wish I could go do my work at one of the city parks -- gorgeous setting if you ask me and great for wi-fi since it's not very forresty.
Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb...