Anthony et al,
We have "won" a battle, a pretty important battle, but there is much left to do to sustain the victory, so to speak.
1. Commercial wireless services have a very difficult time competing with free service because there is very little value added to the commercial service. At least not enough to justify its price.
2. If a company were to try and lower the price of its wireless service, i.e charge a price consumers may be willing to swallow, the company would have a very tough time sustaining its operation.
3. When businesses seek to lure foot traffic to their venues they opt to use free wi-fi as a lure, rather than opting to earn a 'buck per wi-fi user' as promised by commercial wi-fi hawkers who propose revenue sharing of wi-fi. This is becoming very popular lately, and privately people are choosing to frequent free wi-fi establishments, as can be seen by the inclusion of "free wi-fi" as an amenity in some independent restaurant/bar reviews.
4. The advantage of a commercial system is still in its availability and reliability. You can select the free wi-fi network while sitting at Starbucks, if and only if their is one, and one strong enough to reach within Starbucks, and if it does have the oomph, does it have the bandwidth, and if it does have the bandwidth, is the node owner willingly sharing his Internet connection? But there will most always be a for pay option, with good signal, and with decent bandwidth.
5. Much of the growth is not done with intentional sharing. The majority of available nodes in NYC are of the 'linksys' or 'default' SSID, i.e. some guy scoring a cheap AP online, plugging it to his home network, for his own use, and by extension to all those within range. I would love to think that this person would be sharing his connection if he knew, but that is not always the case. The only way you can really gauge success is by having those who share declare that they are sharing, preferably by; a) Assigning a known SSID tag, one that is synonymous with free wi-fi, b) Adding the node to a map that contains free nodes. Although these are basic recommendations that we have called for in the past few years, there needs to be more activity or we risk the possibility of fewer available free nodes, as people become more aware of security concerns.
6. NYCwireless has had tremendous success in Manhattan with regard to public spaces, parks, etc. These nodes are very important as they provide Internet in a usable environment. Many nodes are free and open, but the only practical method to use that connection is by standing on the street with a notebook. There is no shortage of semi-public or public spaces without free wireless, particularly in the outer boroughs.
So while I agree with Anthony's premise that NYCwireless has accomplished a major objective in securing free, open, and public wireless Internet, these are a few points that could use some support so to insure that it remains this way in the future.
As for what can be 'next' for NYCwireless? The logical successor to the building of a free network infrastructure would be free content. The Internet as a commercial entity is half content and half ads. Try getting useful information, free e-mail, etc. without encountering heavy advertising. I support the rights of website operators to earn money, but I decry the diminishing number of quality free useful information.
Jacob Farkas
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June 7, 2004
Where Entrepreneurs Go and the Internet Is Free By MATT RICHTEL
SAN FRANCISCO, June 6 - Linda Branagan would seem to be the ideal customer for entrepreneurs and telecommunications companies looking to make money selling wireless Internet connections. But, like thousands of business road warriors, Ms. Branagan often does not pay for the service because she gets it free.
At cafes, malls and downtown business districts, there has been an explosion of Internet access points, or Wi-Fi hot spots, that let computer users log on to the Internet for free. That growth is a fundamental reason - though not the only one - that technology start-ups, investors and industry analysts who had high hopes for Wi-Fi are scrambling to find sustainable business models.
Ms. Branagan, a director of a medical device research company, pays T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom, $6 an hour for a wireless Internet connection when she is in airports if there are no free access points. But it is another matter when she is working outside the office in San Francisco.
"The Internet is free here," she said, as she sat doing research at The Canvas, an art gallery with a lounge and cafe setting in San Francisco's Sunset district. "Why would I pay T-Mobile?" she asked, when the cafe owners provide free Internet access to attract patrons. <snip>
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