Philadelphia to become huge wireless Internet hot spot

[Tommy]

very cool stuff

in the long run I think this could mean more people on the internet which means more money for us

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,270649,00.html

[Cleo]

I saw that over on Slashdot the other day.

I also saw that within 5 years they are hoping to bring 100 meg pipes into people's homes.

I believe broadband content is the future and this is one of the reasons that I'm learning Final Cut Pro.

[Surfn]

Cool |bananna|

[Pornstar Dames]

Cant see it happening myself all the isps would be loosing a lot of money and the hackers would have a field day.

If it ever does happen it wont be good for this business the only way theyll ever do anything like that is if they have total control over what is accessed.

[Opti]

Originally posted by Pornstar Dames
Cant see it happening myself all the isps would be loosing a lot of money and the hackers would have a field day.

If it ever does happen it wont be good for this business the only way theyll ever do anything like that is if they have total control over what is accessed.


ROFL.. here you go, hack in.... same sort of service went live in Sydney a month or 2 ago

http://www.unwired.com.au/



*edit: For those intereested in how the Phily one might work, check it out... the modem runs on batteries too so you can use it fully mobile, I'm on the verge of ordering one just to play with it I think the possibilities are so cool.

*edit2 I just realised this isn't quite the same as that Phily system described now i understand the article better.. this one uses a propriatory modem and Phily is talking wifi.. that is amazing! Hope it spreads.

[SirMoby]

Originally posted by Pornstar Dames
Cant see it happening myself all the isps would be loosing a lot of money and the hackers would have a field day.

If it ever does happen it wont be good for this business the only way theyll ever do anything like that is if they have total control over what is accessed.
This is going to be great for our industry and it WILL happen. It's already happening in many places. Colleges all over the place offer wireless access and if they control what surfers see then surfers will use another service.

Smart ISPs will end up making plenty of money on this thing. The city will need to outsource bandwidth, support, data centers, training and services. They will make money and the mayor will use it to create jobs in the city.

They will need to increase the encryption but that's not a big deal since hackers already have phone lines.

[Tommy]

think about it

the navation system in cars could have a internet connection and show traffic jams even reroute you around them

the kids can be surfing the web on the way to grandmas house

the lone commuter who takes the train to work just has to open his laptop and hes connected to the internet
all that dead time can be productive

no need for those wireless routers anymore

and this could even kill the hosting companys

[Tommy]

CULVER City Launches Free Wireless Internet Access in Downtown ...
Business Wire (press release) - San Francisco,CA,USA
7, 2004--Culver City, California is pleased to announce the launch of free
wireless Internet access in all outdoor areas of Downtown Culver City


http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040907006096&newsLang=en

[Ramster]

Originally posted by Tommy
CULVER City Launches Free Wireless Internet Access in Downtown ...
Business Wire (press release) - San Francisco,CA,USA
7, 2004--Culver City, California is pleased to announce the launch of free
wireless Internet access in all outdoor areas of Downtown Culver City


http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040907006096&newsLang=en

That is awesome! I could go to the park and do reviews and updates from there. |bananna|

[Pornstar Dames]

Well maybe it will happen but really what i meant is it really shouldnt. Being an ex network admin I know how badly it could be exploited and used for bad and nothing can be done to protect against it either at the most a login and pass to a main server that is monitored by who? College campuses work because they can be monitored and controlled as well as people seeing suspicious activity. I really cant see it working that way for an entire city. The internet is bad enough without anonymous logons from back alleys.

[Tommy]

I dont know much about networks but I wouldnt think there would be any anonymous logins

your gonna pay for access to it just like cable or dsl
I hope they will have a way on logging on that would match you to your billing details

[Opti]

Originally posted by Tommy
I dont know much about networks but I wouldnt think there would be any anonymous logins

your gonna pay for access to it just like cable or dsl
I hope they will have a way on logging on that would match you to your billing details


That Culver Cnty setup uses this product
http://www.terabeam.com/

it explains how login control happens somewhere on that site, but basically they identify who each user is by MAC address and the operator of the hotspot can choose to make users identify the owner of each MAC address before allowing access if they want. In a billed system they would just require a credit card I guess but the description left me thinking anon web access was possible in a free access design.

This is really interesting stuff Tommy, thanks for posting it. If I owned a host company I would be jumping on this stuff looking if it was a good way to extend my business into the ISP/telco market.. looks like the setup costs are amazingly low if you wanted to offer hotspot coverage to a local university or residential community or something confined like that.

*edit: there is a really good looking course teaching you how to setup as a WISP later this month too... http://www.ydi.com/support/training_course-desc.php

[Tommy]

Opti, Its my pleasure

[SirMoby]

For logins and security does it really matter what is used for the physical layer? Everyone will have to register before they can access the wireless network for billing purposes. They will be identified by a combination user/pass and possibly a mac address. I say possibly because that brings up all kinds of support issues when people have multiple wireless devices. I would highly recommend they use the mac.

Hackers will gain some user/pass combos just like they do today. They will also spoof the mac address just like they do today.

Today they use phone lines, campus connections, public connections and cable networks. Tomorrow they will use radio waves. WTF is the difference?

5 Years ago I was project lead in Warsaw, Poland when we did this same thing. While this network was designed for businesses and not consumers we had the same security and administration issues.

The physical media does NOT matter. This will be a huge boost to ALL businesses that market to Internet surfers.