has anyone figured out the business model here?
or is this guy just blowing his trust fund on free wifi? (which i
wholeheartedly approve!)
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http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000731.html
NYC WI-FI IN THE PARK: 46 MB AND RUNNING!
Check out this Rocketboom video interview of Marshall Brown, founder
and CEO of the Wi-Fi Salon, and Andrew Rasiej, who is running for
public advocate in New York. Marshall's company has a concession to
set up and maintain 18 Wi-Fi Hot Spot locations in 9 parks in 4
boroughs in NYC. The first is at Battery Park, which you are seeing
on the video, which has 7 APs fed with 46 mbps backhaul. The next,
Central Park and eight other locations are to be completed in July.
Andrew emphasizes that people in NYC pay an average of $50 per month
for broadband to cable and telecoms operators, a significant amount
for middle-class and lower middle-class families. He believes they
are paying too much. I am sure the bandwidth they are graciously
provided by the Duopoly does not approach 8 Mbps, which is what I get
in Amsterdam.
Among the uses for a Wi-Fi hotspot in the park:
- watch streaming video on your Wi-Fi enabled devices (see the
portable video screen in the interview)
- play online games via a Sony Playstation Portable (Wi-Fi enabled)
- do work on your laptop (least favored use)
This is a such a fantastic initiative from Marshall and I am glad
he's not skimping on the bandwidth.
Wi-Fi Salon has portal software for this (www.portalize.org) (see /
battery for the first instance) and www.portalize.org/controlpanel
for the control panel; they also have VOIP (www.packetalk.net).
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