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The Return of Free Internet
valdean writes "Remember the days of ad-supported dial-up Internet access from the likes of Netzero and Altavista Free Access? Those days, and the business model that supplied them, are long gone... or perhaps not. A new effort is being explored by California-based FreeFi Networks. Last week, the company launched what will be a nationwide network of ad-supported wi-fi hotspots. Ads will appear in what FreeFi calls a "narrow, persistent band of content" across the bottom of the user's screen. To provide incentive to America's coffee shops, they'll share advertising revenues with the hosting venue. Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?"
I pay via my phone company and ISP - I'm not paying any more once I'm online. But I don't look at adverts - it's AdBlock all the way.
You may not be paying for it with money, but you still end up 'paying' for it.
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I'm surfing _right now_ on an open connection in the next apartment building.
/.'ers are aware of the free internet around them.
In the past year, when on the road, It's never taken more than a few minutes of walking / wardriving through a strip mall or retail street to get a connection.
While this service certainly has some value to me as a last resort, I wonder how many non
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
I'm getting the old insulating tape ready to cover the
' narrow, persistent band of content" across the bottom of'
my screen
"Last week, the company launched what will be a nationwide network of ad-supported wi-fi hotspots."
Note: All hotspots will occur exclusively at starbucks coffee shops. Considerations are underway to expand to McDonalds and Walmarts near you!
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
How will it manage to accomplish this? browsing inside of an activeX window? will it proxy everywhere you go with a frame on the bottom of every page ala google images? And if so, how long till this gets cracked?
Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?
Here where I live (EU, Czech Republic), we have had companies offering free access to internet for free for many many years. So your question should be rephrased to "Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived in the US?"
It's not Free if you have to rely on your provider to throttle your bandwidth by flooding you with ads.
I am somehow anxious to see that one has to pay the big bucks to avoid an over-commercial situation.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Pay-to-surf was a British attempt to pay people to watch advertising online - it failed, partly because a lot of users found a way to move the advertising off-screen using virtual desktops
Now we are in the age of pop-up blocking and adblock, a few REGEXP filters and a bit of custom config will probably let a lot of users very easily remove the advertising content... unless, that is, they intend to use a dedicated client instead of open standards for their wifi hotspots, in which case mac and linux laptops probably won't work with it anyway.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Both TFA and the FreeFi site don't mention OS requirements. The FreeFi site has a screenshot of their "toolbar" (the thing with the constant streaming ads) running on XP. What are the chances it'll be available for non-Windows people too?
I think, therefore I am. I think?
I think this is a great idea. A business model based on giving something away is one of my favorites, and has been since the release of doom 1.0. If done well, everyone benefits. One thing I'm wondering.. this persistant band of content. How long will it take until someone comes up with a way to disable that? I seem to recall various other schemes that used a similar concept, and it always seemed like someone would quickly come up with a method for removing the revenue generating add content. Maybe a similar idea would work better, i.e. instead of a persistent bar of content, you could have an add filled portal type page that the user sees when they first access the hot spot. Not hard to set up at all. Of course, it might be that their ad content is just fine, and not a bother. Google is an example of a company doing that kind of thing correctly. We get a useful service, and the ads aren't flashing yellow monstrosities. If done wrong, tho, it can be a nightmare.
We have had telephone network access for about a centutry now.
It has never been free.
Why should Internet access be?
Even "free"-to-air television is NOT free. All those products and services advertised. those products and services you buy, pay for that TV.
If it is government funded TV then it is your taxes that are paying for it.
There is no free lunch.
Yet another misguided company that thinks that "The Internet" == "The World-Wide Web".
It seems pretty clear that wireless access will only increase, until we no longer worry about our physical connection to the internet; it will simply be everywhere. The question is, with people moving around cities and such, what payment model will survive? I suspect it will be something along the lines of companies sharing the actual infrastructure but selling ACCESS to it individually, much like long-distance carriers do with the current phone system.
But I think an ad-based system for basic access is just not a great general solution. Maybe there's some small group that wants it, but that probably won't justify the large cost of installing equipment at first. I predict this will go under for the same reasons the old free internet providers did.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Yes, it's the New Economy! It wasn't really gone - that downcycle was just part of it. Everything free (supported by ads for other free services, supported by ads for the first free service), buying up blog companies and other things that loads of people use for free, it's The Future! Once more!
The New Economy is really different from the Old Economy - for one thing, companies don't need to make any profits, earnings or even have a business plan, but we knew that already. The other thing is that it leads to a total stock market crash every eight years! It's The Future.
But doesn't that cost insane amounts of money, I hear you ask, investing billions in no-brains companies every few years, losing it all, starting all over "because the VCs must invest in something, or give the money back to investors!"
Yes, but (and you can sing along, as you do know the words) - we'll make it up in volume! Over and over and over again...
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
That's how 'free internet' worked here in Ireland; more correctly called 'no subscription internet' where you were instead charged the cost of a normal local call, and the ISP got a cut for terminating the call. Freeserve in the UK was the first 'free' ISP in Europe following this model I believe, although the market has now swung more towards flat-rate and then broadband.
The problem with the advertising business - as seen with the complaints about TV recording utilities that automatically detect advert breaks, with the widespread use of popup blockers, and the large number of people who completely ignore ads:
Most people don't like adverts.
The companies that pay for the adverts are hoping to get extra custom want more ways to get to the client, and this will likely go forward because of the technology push - BUT the problem with a fixed bar of adverts is that after a few logons you ignore most of what happens in that part of the screen.
Yes, there are people who do find the ads interesting, and will click on them. I currently find TV ads more interesting than most TV, since the advertisers are stretching further and further to catch our attention in zany and wacky ways that make us impressed enough to even think about buying their product; but I don't think that's the norm. People with an agenda will miss the ads, for the greater part; the tie-in with cheaper broadband may be good enough timing that this will work - cost per profit - but I'll be surprised.
Not that I'd complain.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
but free dialup has been very common here in Sweden for 2-3 years now. Ever since broadband took off the companies provide anyone who wants with free dialup - only pay the phonecharge.
Hell, there are several places where you go to a webpage, click a button and boom they provide you with a username, password and phone# to call. All without having to provide a single shred of personal information.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
I'd like to hear their definition of adware.
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?
We have had telephone network access for about a centutry now.
It has never been free.
Why should Internet access be?
We have had television network access for half a century now.
It has always been free (well at least some of it).
Why shouldn't Internet access be?
Mostly negative comments so far. I think this is a very good thing. If the other option is no wifi at all, I'd go for the ad-sponsored one any day. I wouldn't mind the ads as I would only use the connection temporarly.
Martin
Besides the problems with forcing the ads, how will they make sure the person sitting across the street can't read your email? That's a big issue, imo.
With public access wifi, capturing the airbourne packets is probably gonna be very easy. And no-one notices you, because your notebook will simply function as a 'radio'...
Ofcourse, using tunnels (w/IPSec) and TLS will provide the neccesary encryption, but unless you always 'phone home' and use your home intenet connection, privacy will be an issue.
And ofcourse, there's the banners. The only thing that I can think of that will work is some mangling proxy that adds a frame on each and every page. And even that is very simple to bypass. But it _does_ mean a direct internet connection is not allowed, because most services are not meant to have banners injected to them, or even incapable of transferring them.
Thus, when they indeed only use a web proxy, I cannot classify as 'free internet', because the web isn't the Internet.
I'd just sit back and wait til it comes, then take a look at it again. It may not be as bad as described above, but it still could ofcourse.
Please submit an article when it is actually _working_.
The current model seems to fall into the you-pay-through-the-nose-you-businessman type. Starbucks was once upon a time charging 60 bucks per month for unlimited wireless access. Airports and other places still charge something like a dollar per minute.
On the other hand, many people leave their networks open either inadvertently or intentionally because if you're resolved to pay for the backend anyway, you might as well share.
So wireless internet access right now is either free or ludicrously expensive, with nothing inbetween. This seems like it could be a nice inbetween. No credit card changes hands, you're not committed to buying a day of time for 20 dollars, and you're not relying upon the kindness of strangers. You're paying for your internet access, and it's as always-on and always convienient as at home. If you want to just log on and check your mail quickly, you can do just that.
The ______ Agenda
Has 'free Internet access' finally arrived?
Short answer, no.
Any thoughts as to how adoption of city wide government funded wi-fi will play into this? I seem to recall hearing about a few major cities, Philly comes to mind, having done this or at least are in the process of implimentation. I'm wondering how long it'll be before the majority of cities adopt universal wi-fi at the cost to taxpayers making this new service obsolete.
There are no additional fees from the ISP and most give you POP3 email, a couple of email aliases and sometimes a small amount of web space.
Not totally free, but pretty close to it (and no adverts either).
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I already pay enough to my ISP, so I never bother with those pay-for-access WiFi hotspots that cafes and airports have. (Our local airport on the other hand has free WiFi). If the WiFi hotspot is not free, I use the GPRS service on my mobile phone because it's already paid for. It may be slow, but it does for email and web surfing.
The trouble with the pay for access WiFi hotspots (at least here) are most of them are extortionate. The minimum charge at, say, Gatwick Airport is GBP/5. You can't buy less than a one hour block. Those 'payphone style' Internet kiosks are cheaper, and you can buy just 15 minutes worth which is enough to check email (and you don't have to use up your laptop's battery).
If I ran a cafe, I'd allow free wifi with a purchase. It'd be something extra to differentiate my shop from the competition.
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I remember using NetZero before, and I did something (what, exactly, escapes me) where I popped open taskman and hit 'end task' at a specific point during connection -- or something -- which allowed me to have free internet access without any ads. It worked great for fullscreen activities like Diablo 1 and Starcraft (shows you how long ago I was pulling the trick).
The cost of the bandwidth and overheads and so on will be subsidized by advertising costs. These costs are in turn paid for by the customers of the advertisers (*) (meaning the advertisers must charge more for their products than they would otherwise have been able to). This means the customers of the advertisers' products are paying for it, rather directly in fact (although that may seem too abstract for some people to connect the two .. but a percentage of the cost of any product you buy is used to advertise that very product to you .. you are in a sense "buying" the advertising too). There is also going to be some overlap between the two sets of users (advertisers' customers vs 'bandwidth users'), so some will pay for the BW even more directly. But while on an individual level it may be possible to just sit and use the bandwidth 'for free', taken on the average the users are still paying for it. And it doesn't sound like a terribly efficient bandwidth payment model to me - paying an ISP directly is probably more economically efficient for providing the same service, which may make this "devolution" in a sense, or perhaps just "divergence" as there is now a choice between models to the consumer.
And although you may think that you're purely snarfing free bandwidth and that the ads have no effect on you, unless you physically block the ads or take note of the places advertised and deliberately avoid them, those ads are absorbed by your brain in one way or another, and will increase brand recognition and brand identity no matter what you do, making you statistically more likely to buy those products. An interesting question is whether or not this is a more effective (and thus economically efficient) advertising medium than other advertising media. If it turns out to be less effecient, it means the advertisers have to pay more to get the same return, which is perhaps a step backwards.
My own theory is that ultimately we never get anything for free because over the course of your life it all averages out: Some level of cross-subsidisation is everywhere (e.g. IE isn't "free" because those who buy Windows pay for it; "free pizza delivery" is effectively subsidised by walk-in customers in the form of slightly higher prices to cover the delivery costs, etc.) For every product you get for "free", on average there is another occasion where you end up subsidising someone else's "free" product (usually without even knowing), so it all cancels out in the end.
(*) Just to pre-empt anyone counter-arguing that investor funding may be used: True, but investors still expect returns, and investor returns generally come from customers or more investments.
Timothy is often reposts previously posted news because he doesn't look first. In this case, he should have looked up netzero and juno, which are still around, still offering free ad-supported dialup access. They actually merged into one company, United Online, in 2001.
The business model is to give away ad-cluttered free access -- which is limited to something like 10 hours per month -- and try to upsell you to their $9.95 and $14.95 premium plans, which do not install an ad panel.
Just got back from a trip to Brighton (South Coast of England) where there are loads of pubs, cafes and restaurants offering free internet access. All with wi-fi, some even have freely usable pcs.
I'd not seen this elsewhere, but it got me thinking, considering the price of a basic dsl connection (about £20) and wifi access point (also about £20-30) for the extra revenue it'll generate it's surely a good loss leader to bring in customers and keep them a little longer. On the way back from brighton I stopped at a Motorway service station and picked up a leaflet for BT openzone (£6 per hour) hardly a great incentive!
Course it doesnt! Cos they're the plucky little software company taking on the big boys so they're the Good Guys.
So if we're all happy to have Operas banners when we use that browser, why the fuss about this outfit? You get to connect without paying cash, they get to show you adverts. Simple transaction.
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...it works with free (speech and beer) OSes and allows unproxied access to the rest of the world, it will be a hit with people like me. :)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
To the few who say they got free WiFi from thier neighbors....if they know about it, thats one thing. If they don't, that's another. Just because you spot a open WiFi port does not mean it's yours to use. If anything, I'd figure out where it is and let the owner be aware that their WiFi is wide open and anyone can use thier net connection for various things, legal and not legal.
Gorkman
HOSTS file.
Of course, if that blocks the ads, and the ads are on the same server that their connections are routed through, you're kinda boned.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
free community wireless, WITHOUT Ads? Will they lobby to get us outlawed?
Personally, I wouldn't mind having an ad bar running ads along the bottom of the browser window if it meant free service. Given that a WiFi connection would mean more bandwidth than a dialup connection, it wouldn't interfere with my reading of the web pages I click to.
I use Google and Gmail all the time right now and the ads they place on each page loaded don't bother me at all.
The problem with services such as NetZero (which I had for over a year) was that at dialup speeds the ads hogged enough of the bandwidth that eventually I got sick of it and quit.
Also, in terms of TV/radio I don't think ads are necessarily bad. If the ad creators did a better job of producing their ads then folks wouldn't necessarily skip them. I know a lot of you don't skip the beer commercials during sports programming because you want to see those hot chicks.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
In Europe and other areas, the local calls are not free, and this is how the ISP/Telecom makes money.
In Egypt, the internet is free for everyone who has a phone line. No ISP fees, no subscription (and no POP mail either, everyone uses Hotmail).
The trick is revenue sharing between the ISP and the telecom provider (either a government run monopoly or a private state-sanctioned monopoly). The per minute charge comes on the phone bill, and the fees are split by the ISP and telecom.
In the USA and Canada this would never work, since local calls are free, and no revenue to share.
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The article says these guys run the hotspot at no charge to the location owner "except for the cost of a broadband connection". Does that mean the location owner pays for the link to the Internet? If so then I can see how they can offer this for free, there's no cost to FreeFi at all. And the first question I (and the manager of the coffee shop near me) would ask is, "If I'm paying for the expensive part, why do I need FreeFi at all?".
This is not new, check out the original free community network.