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London Installing Largest Free Wifi Network
aesoteric writes "London's Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea districts will be delivered the largest free wi-fi zone in Europe. The plan is to provide the service in time for the 2012 London Olympics, which start in late July, to allow visitors and residents to get more out of their stay."
Read the fine print when you agree to their terms of service.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I'm guessing it won't be anonymous.
T minus one week: Everyone scrambles to get the network up and running.
T minus one hour: Large news event, hosted by the BBC, to throw the ceremonial comedically large switch.
T minus zero: Network is live. Cheers occur.
T plus one second: Twitchy, caffeine-addled basement dweller discovers this network will not enable him to download his 58PB of pirated anime porn every month like he thought* he would be able to.
T plus one-point-five seconds: Blog post goes up.
T plus two seconds: Echo chamber agrees, internet declares service to be utterly without merit, useless, and a direct affront to freedom because of this.
T plus five seconds: Someone discovers someone else somewhere might be looking at them while they use the wireless network, immediate accusations of government spying start, numerous ill-informed references to Nineteen Eighty-Four permeate discussion.
T plus five-point-five seconds: Blog post goes up.
T plus six seconds: Echo chamber agrees, internet declares service to be utterly without merit, useless, and a direct affront to freedom because of this.
T plus ten seconds: Cloistered, sheltered nerd sits in complete befuddlement, absolutely baffled as to why on earth anyone would have any objections to him hosting his array of torrents on this network, sucking down every last slice of bandwidth available.
T plus ten-point-five seconds: Blog post goes up.
T plus eleven seconds: Echo chamber agrees, internet declares service to be utterly without merit, useless, and a direct affront to freedom because of this.
*: By which I mean "deluded himself into believing".
They're "boroughs", not "districts". Jeeze.
People who've invested their own time, money and effort into providing (and charging for) Wifi must be just thrilled that the council have given a private operator rights to erect equipment in public spaces right next to their premises that effectively kicks their product out of the market. Is the need for public Wifi that pressing that the council are being diverted from their normal duties like, you know, sweeping the streets?
In Westminster alone, it could be providing internet access to half a million tourists each day, 250,000 residents and 500,000 workers.
Half a million of tourists - would they plan to ask for a "tourist id" for granting access?
They should just ask Singapore how Singapore handles it.
Wireless@SG works in most places I've tried it (Changi Airport, Orchid road). I get the code from the info booth at the airport, valid for 4 hours and wander around Singapore for a bit before my next flight. Handy for long stopovers. A beer in SG is expensive enough, doubly so in an airport (S$13 last time I was there).
The simple way would be registration via an email address, get a code for Wireless@LON for 14 days. Beyond this, SMS codes. seeing as these are captive portals, you regester to have an access code SMS'ed to any UK phone (probably work for any EU phone).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Wtf? Free wifi in a European country?! Does not compute. I was almost certain that "Free", "Insert any service here", and "" could NEVER coexist in the same sentence.... Go to London, pay eleventy pounds for parking, pay to use restroom, pay to breathe air, pay to blink eyes, pay to use sidewalk, but Wifi is now freeeee! Oh wait, only because of the Olympics.
The parking (and congestion) charges are to discourage car use. Many Londoners, including me, don't even own a car.
But there's plenty of free things to do in London -- more than any other city I've ever visited. Some great museums: the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) at South Kensington are free. So is the British Museum, in Holborn. The Museum of London (in the City) is free, as is the Imperial War Museum (Lambeth). That's just the biggest ones, there are at least 20 more not-insignificant free museums.
There are markets, old buildings (cathedrals etc), big art galleries, parks, palaces, the river, theatre, many small gigs are free... and that's just the normal, year-round stuff. There should be free one-off events, though it's obviously worth planning if you want to see something in particular.
Try these websites:
http://www.visitlondon.com/tag/free-attractions
http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/1424/free-london
http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/free-london
http://londonist.com/tags/lotclist
"in time for the London Olympics"... which takes place in the east of London, in Stratford, far from any of these boroughs.
Most of Londons hotels and resturants are in this area and this is where tourists will spend most of their time and money when not watching the events. Local businesses in East London will see very little tourist money.
The advertiser supported model was tried during the dot-com era and largely failed. Since there really is no such thing as free, I am guessing O2 is going to collect browsing habbits and information to resell to marketing companies in addition to advertisements. O2 might actually make more money by combining reselling user data and advertiser supported services.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and reply courteously.
That's great that you, you know, live in London. As in, you can afford the outrageous cost of living there,
Other than housing, most essential costs aren't much different to the rest of the country (food, fuel, transport, etc). Socialising is more expensive, but outside the centre it's not that much more.
and take what must be an exquisite pleasure to lecture the rest of us on transportation.
You'll get a better experience of London if you use the public transport, rather than try and drive everywhere. Driving in London is frustrating -- it's difficult to find parking, there's a *lot* of traffic, the streets are narrow and dense, there are many one-way restrictions. That's the way things are here.
(Would it be lecturing to advise a European against taking Amtrak and buses round the USA, if they have a limited time for their trip?)
I love how you recommend thieves' dens of stolen merchandise (you called them 'museums' I believe, an interesting bowdlerism if there ever was one) with a straight face.
So don't visit the British Museum. The other museums have completely different collections. The Museum of London, for example, has artefacts from London, often from excavations, or donations.
Surely, being a well-heeled Londoner, you must be acquainted with the idea that if something is free, then it must be worthless. Otherwise, the Great Unwashed will be all over it.
You clearly don't know this city, and I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.