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Soft Target Technologies
Wireless (802.11b) Networking
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From Bryant Park
to the East Village,
Free Wireless Internet Access Is on the Rise
By Sam Williams
The New York Sun, Tuesday, September 10, 2002
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Tom Sjogren has seen the future of the Internet,
and it starts
somewhere between a fish market and a liquor store.
"I think it was around Avenue B and 14th," he says.
Mr. Sjogren is talking about free Internet access, and on a recent
day
in the East Village, he stumbled upon the mother lode. He was
participating in a scavenger hunt designed to dramatize the growing
number of wireless Internet "hotspots" throughout the city,
and within
seconds of reaching the corner, the "sniffer" software program
on his
laptop showed open nodes, free wireless Internet connections with
no
security barriers, in almost every direction. Eager to record the
discovery, Mr. Sjogren and his teammates hooked into the Internet
via
a nearby wireless network and uploaded a quick set of digital
photographs.
"It was exciting," says Mr. Sjogren. "Until then, I
didn't think it
was possible to get on the Internet that way."
Mr. Sjogren isn't the only person revising his opinions on the
wireless Internet. Since the beginning of the year, wireless fidelity,
or WiFi, a communication standard that takes advantage of unlicensed
portions of the radio spectrum, has been catapulting in popularity.
Major companies such as IBM, Intel, and even Starbucks are rushing
to
meet rising consumer demand for hardware, software, and wireless
service.
The numbers explain why. According to the Yankee Group, a Boston-based
technology analyst firm, the number of wireless Local Area Networks
has doubled within the last year, rising to more than 1 million access
points in the business realm alone. Toshiba, a manufacturer of WiFi
transmission devices, puts the current number of publicly accessible
hotspots at 1,200 and says it plans to help boost that number to
10,000 by the end of 2003.
Such growth rates are reminiscent of the last great exponential-growth
technology phenomenon, the Internet itself. "We believe the industry
is currently reaching a major inflection point for widespread
adoption," writes Sam May, a senior technology analyst at U.S.
Bancorp
Piper Jaffray.
If the current WiFi buildup mirrors the early growth of the Internet,
or its most popular offshoot, the World Wide Web, maybe that's because
WiFi, like the Web before it, draws on the same fast, cheap, and
out-of-control design philosophy.
Launched in late 1999 under the code name 802.11b, WiFi takes
advantage of the same portions of the radio spectrum currently used
by
microwave ovens and cordless phones. That means device manufacturers
don't have to pay hefty spectrum licensing fees. That, plus the fact
WiFi signals rarely extend more than 300 feet, all but ensures a
robust, heterogeneous marketplace in terms of service.
"It's almost a real estate play," observes Christian Gunning,
president and founder of Boingo Wireless, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based
WiFi startup. "If you get the rights to any given property, you
own
that property."
Boingo currently sells software to streamline the uplinking process
on
the consumer end, but the company's long-term goal is to build a
seamless national WiFi network by partnering with hotels, airports,
and other single point providers.
Interestingly, Boingo's biggest competitor isn't AOL Time Warner or
Verizon: it's Starbucks. Last month, the Seattle-based coffee retailer
announced a partnership with T-Mobile Wireless that would put wireless
LANs inside 1,200 of its U.S. stores by the end of 2002. With more
than 120 stores in Manhattan alone, such a move could quickly propel
Starbucks to the forefront of local service providers.
For adventurous early adopters like Mr. Sjogren, however, the current
patchwork state of WiFi service is its own attraction. Following the
recent "noderunner" game, Mr. Sjogren took part in a recent
"war-chalking" class at Eyebeam, a Chelsea art space. Conceived
by
British WiFi enthusiast Matt Jones, "war-chalking" is a
derivation of
"wardialing" the old 1980s-era hacker trick of dialing phone
numbers
at random in search of an open modem tone. The real inspiration,
however, comes from the old hobo practice of using chalk symbols to
guide future travelers on the road. Instead of pointing out where
to
find free food and lodging, war-chalking symbols point out the local
node, it's status, and the available bandwidth.
"After class, we went around chalking up the sidewalk,"
Mr. Sjogren
recalls. "We found two open nodes and two closed nodes within
the
first 10 blocks."
You don't have to necessarily search for free WiFi access, though.
In
Bryant Park, Tompkins Square Park, and several other public spaces
throughout Manhattan, users can access the Internet simply by opening
up a laptop and using built-in software. NYCwireless, a local
non-profit WiFi users group, has launched an effort to establish free
wireless Internet service citywide, and it has teamed up with the
Bryant Park Restoration Corporation in the Midtown park to create
three 11 Mb wireless access points running atop a 1.5 Mb T-l line.
If the founders of NYCwireless had their way, games like
"war-chalking" and "war-driving" will soon become
a thing of the past,
at least in New York City. Anthony Townsend, a professor of urban
planning at NYU, helped launch NYCwireless to take advantage of the
city's dense construction. "I wanted to make sure we got to these
places before the for-profit providers did," he says.
One of the group's primary goals, he says, is to blanket the city
with
free wireless coverage. "Ideally," he says. "We'd like
every street,
every park, every subway station, every train station to have a free
wireless network in it."
That might be a tall order for the moment, but wireless users are
already taking advantage of fellow New Yorkers' generosity. Many of
the so-called open nodes springing up around the city are the result
of private users attaching wireless LANs atop existing broadband
Internet connections and letting neighbors log on, or "piggyback,"
for
free. Such generosity could be short-lived, however, as security and
bandwidth concerns prompt system administrators crack down on the
practice. In July Time Warner Cable of New York City attracted
attention when it sent letters to a dozen local subscribers warning
against redistribution of service.
"We wanted to educate customers on the dangers of opening their
service to random users," says a spokesperson for Time Warner
Cable of
New York, Suzanne Giuliani. "We also wanted to remind them that
Roadrunner is a proprietary service for their individual use only."
Even if Internet service providers do crack down, Mr. Townsend
believes the path of WiFi usage bends towards zero cost. The
limitations of the WiFi signal make it possible for retailers and
building managers to charge for Internet access in some places, but
as
the number of free hotspots grow NYCwireless currently reports more
than 70 between Bryant Park and Bowling Green -- users will come to
expect the same unrestricted Internet surfing experience they get
in
the home or office.
"This is phase two," says Mr. Townsend. "Phase one
was building out
the network, connecting city to city and person to person. Phase two
is building the last mile so you can take the network to interesting
places." Mr. Williams, a Brooklyn-based writer, has written about
software for Salon and Upside Today. |
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