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New York To Get Free Wi-Fi Network Via Livery Cabs

Posted by kdawson on from the don't-drive-like-my-brother dept.

AndyAndyAndyAndy writes "NYC may finally have a viable plan for free, ad-supported public Wi-Fi service. A company named LimoRes Car & Limo plans to roll out 1,000 cars with transmitters by the fall, and 20,000 by 2011, providing in-car Wi-Fi and externally with a radius of 200 feet. Each car will be able to support up to 16 separate connections. It may be a long shot to say this will provide complete coverage in Manhattan, but if each cab company in New York got onboard... although the brief article notes that the tougher regulation environment for taxicabs means that Wi-Fi won't be coming to Yellow Cabs any time soon."

15 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, you will have a fleeting connection as the cab whips by, dropping of a fare outside your $2000 a month NYC hovel...

    No, but seriously, educate me: how will someone maintain a connection when the access point is always moving?

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    1. Re:Hmmm... by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Funny

      Moving? This is New York City we're talking about.

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    2. Re:Hmmm... by ls671 · · Score: 3, Funny

      > No, but seriously, educate me:

      Simple enough, you just need to follow the access point with your car. Problem solved !

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    3. Re:Hmmm... by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except that no wifi drivers support the mesh topography standards.

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    4. Re:Hmmm... by Tracy+Reed · · Score: 5, Funny

      Finally, I get to shout:

      FOLLOW THAT CAB!

    5. Re:Hmmm... by JWSmythe · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I still see huge problems with this. If you have one car per block, and they are stationary, the mesh idea is pretty good. When I've been in New York, that's not what I've ever seen. I wouldn't worry too much about a lack of signal. I'd worry a lot about too many towers in the same place on the same or neighboring frequencies. I'm sure quite a few of us have encountered what happens when you have too many access points on the same channel too close together. Apartment complexes are great for it. I've had it happen where there were too many small homes close together.

          What's going to happen when you have a view like above. There aren't enough channels to segregate everyone off to somewhere different. The cars can't constantly be changing channels. There's no way to manage the cars to keep the different channels apart. If it's a mesh network, you're also going to find saturation on various cars, as the signal is bounced around between relay points. I am curious to what they expect the uplinks to be. To provide Internet service, they'll have to (oh my gosh) have a connection to the Internet.

          I can think of a few solutions, but none are standard WiFi. They'd be looking at resolving the problems that cell phone providers have already done, except they're expecting to have their towers moving constantly too.

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    6. Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, the congestion issue's not a problem for standard wifi -- just needs to be 802.11a/n in the 5 GHz band, where there's more channels and they're non-overlapping. Uplinks could be WIMAX any day now (from Sprint, probably), and LTE possibly next year or so.

      Of course, probably 90% of devices are b/g/n 2.4GHz only, so that's not what'll happen. *sigh*

    7. Re:Hmmm... by mr_mischief · · Score: 4, Informative

      A livery cab is a cab for point-to-point rental. It is not a yellow taxi cab that you can hail from the curb. It's what you get when someone says, "I've called a car for you. You'll be dropped off at the client's at 10."

  2. Thats going to be a mess for wifi users everywhere by bit+trollent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now, you don't only have to worry about what your neighbors are doing on their wifi. A traffic jam full of taxis in front of your apartment will totally screw your wifi.

    Over-wifi. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

    You's seen it at Apple and Android announcements. They wifi is to crowded and somebody has to find an ethernet cable.

  3. A moving WifI.... by Kitkoan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless they plan on parking the cars a lot, I don't see how this can be useful. Once the car goes down the block it will be out of range and the connection will drop. Won't matter if another one is behind it since it won't be the same connection so no auto-reconnect either.

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    1. Re:A moving WifI.... by JSBiff · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "...and you've just gotten the government to subsidize premium wifi for your customers."

      There, fixed it for you. The only thing better than getting the government to provide a free service to your customers is to get the government to provide a free service to [b]you[/b] that you turn around and charge your customers $25/hr for. I mean, these are *limos*. . . you don't think people riding around NYC in limos would pay $25/hr for Wifi in the car? More to the point, you don't think the limo companies wouldn't charge them for it?

    2. Re:A moving WifI.... by mr_mischief · · Score: 2, Informative

      Livery cabs can include limos. Livery cabs don't include the Yellow Taxi for which New York is famous. Anything that can be hailed at the curb by a random fair without prearranging the livery (literally the renting of a ride) is not a livery cab. Limos, Town Cars, minivans, or pretty much any vehicle can be a livery cab, and limos are a popular choice.

  4. Re:Stupid for people outside the car, but by Kitkoan · · Score: 2, Informative

    at least it's free wifi for people inside the car. But yea, it's a bit dishonest to call this free public wifi. I'm not sure if slashdot interpreted the article incorrectly or if the company is just really inept and actually thinks thousands of moving wifi APs will create a sustainable public wifi network.

    The article states "It would provide Wi-Fi to people in the cars, as well as those within about 400 feet of the car." Now with it stating that it will provide WiFi to those within 400 feet of the car, it brings to mind the idea of a free public WiFi that could all together cover the entire city. It still is a little dishonest but who is wrong here depends on who felt that mentioning it would transmit a signal 400 feet of the car, it could be either the company or the article writer adding more information here then they should have.

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    Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
  5. Can't really support this... by wronskyMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    unless they get open source drivers!

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  6. Re:200 foot limit - 3D concerns by mr_mischief · · Score: 3, Informative

    How often do you see livery cabs lined up for fares? Yellow taxis, sure, all the time. I'd bet it's a rare building that has a steady stream of call-ahead, pre-arranged, private rental cars with drivers pulling up. A livery cab isn't a taxi. You can't hail it. A livery cab is codified in NYC law as a "For Hire Vehicle" or "FHV".

    You'll get a lot of liveries at JFK or LaGuardia, sure, and maybe at sports stadiums when there's a game. Most of the cabs in the city are taxi cabs, which in NYC are all yellow.