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Verizon Pulling Plug on Free Wi-Fi in NYC
Cashen writes "'Verizon Communications Inc. is turning off the free wireless Internet access it beams from New York City telephone booths for DSL subscribers who use laptops away from home or the office.' Full article here. Is it just a coincidence Verizon is expanding its EV-DO in New York at the same time? Guess we have to pay to play now ... The real question is, when is EV-DO coming to Michigan?"
people will just use the access points around...
come on anyone who buys a router now gets wifi on it and they leave it open OR you just discover the keys and break in (yeah it takes a while but thats life)
realistically wifi is here to stay and its kind of free (to those in the know)
most of the students I know dont pay they just leach of others bandwidth or plug into uni...
regards
John Jones
with their own gear.
As far as I'm concerned, if it's their stuff, it's their call. I DO have an issue with their lobbyists getting legislation passed that forbids other people from doing the same thing.
Take your trucks and go home, Verizon. Leave my toys alone.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The key phrase in the article is "better business model" = "way to make as much money as possible without being forced out of the market by competitors"
where's all that Karma?
come on anyone who buys a router now gets wifi on it and they leave it open OR you just discover the keys and break in (yeah it takes a while but thats life)
Using an open access point is cool. I leave mine open and people are free to use it. Using a network that has keys on it is uncool. That is criminal because you actually are breaking into a system to use it. It is also stupid because most of closed networks are corporate network that have people monitoring them. There is enough open access points that spending the time breaking into a closed one is a waste of time anyway. I think most people breaking into closed networks do it more for the l33t factor despite being script kiddies.
I live in Alabama, you insensitive clod!
If that's true, how do you post to slashdot without an internet connection?
paintball
Is it just a coincidence Verizon is expanding its EV-DO in New York at the same time?
Obviously not, if you read the article in your own link.
"A lot has changed over the past two years in terms of wireless access," said Henson. "Everybody's trying to look for a business model around (Wi-Fi).... But the better business model in our mind is the EV-DO network."
Same situation here also. Verizon is rolling out 3 Mbps/768 Kbps DSL for $30/month with a free wireless router. Many people are switching to that as opposed to the other option which is 3 Mbps/512 Kbps Cable for $45/month. This means TONS of unsecured 802.11g routers in my area. Good for when I need a connection when I am away from my desk!
Kyle
"You can set it up with a Wi-Fi router on your end but then as with anything else you are responsible for the security of the network that you set up."
That and don't forget to pay the bill in a timely manner. The "community" would hate to see all that "free service" cut off.
"As soon as a company goes public... all of a sudden, you are controlled by the greed of the stockholders and the board instead of a handful of owners."
That's why a smart owner remains a majority stockholder.
Right. Because it was all those socialist idiots like FDR who caused the Great Depression, right? Oh wait...
Your cognitive dissonance is profoundly disturbing. Uncontrolled and unregulated Capitalism is what caused the catastrophy to begin with and now you turn around and blame those who tried to repair the damage for not re-applying more forcefully the same methods which lead to the disaster in the first place...
I believe one definition of insanity is "performing the same actions over and over and expecting a different result". Should FDR do what his predecessor did (i.e. be pro-capital, supply-side, against labour etc) he would have fullfilled this definiton. Luckilly for us (and to the amusement of some fringe economy "scholars" who practice voodoo and not science like all economists do) FDR did what he did. And the USA did recover and enjoyed a prolonged period of prosperity ... until the supply-side cult had taken over again ... and they are in the process of removing any last remaining vestiges of FDR's legacy ... and yet, somehow, you say hello to $800 billion budget and astronomical trade deficits! And we up here in Canada, with our down-right pinko commie free to all medicare, old-age pentions and prevalent government regulation (not to mention sticky-fingered politicians) are having surpluses and somehow our economy is not doing any worse then yours, despite our having much larger tax burden. Go figure.
Or actually I will figure it for you: all advanced societies need some basic skeletal infrastructure to function, more advanced they get, more advanced this support structure needs to be. Thus the government gets to provide roads and police and basic necessities such as medical care and support of citizens in need such as that of an old and very young age. This includes basic education, because more educated the work force, more efficient (and profitable) the enterprises drawing from it will be. Then there is basic protections of citizens from predation by immoral individuals, be they muggers on the corner or silk-suited CEOs. Simple really. Its called civilization. Remove these fundamental protections and support and you got barbarism and law of the jungle. USA is already partially there, up to and including waging questionable wars for profit of some of its select priviledged citizens, which as history teaches (as much as we can trust it) is one of the crucial indicators present in past societies who also slid from greatness into barbarism.