[BAWUG] Tokyo Narita WiFi

[Sameer Verma]

Folks,
I am writing from Tokyo, Japan where wireless LANs are given a quizzical look. They have their own 3G cards branded FOMA by NTT DoCoMo (the card looks like the orinoco card with tiny antennas) and wonder why anyone would be interested in WiFi. Not many people are aware of the "unlicensed space" concept as we have it in the US. Since I don't have a 3G card, they set up a WiFi network at the meeting - just for me :-)

I was at the Narita airport, and the first thing I did after clearing customs was to netstumble. There it was. NTA-ARIPORT wifi lan running at the airport. The base unit showed up as Agere. The airport site advertises this as a free service.
http://www.naa.go.jp/HP/naaInfo.nsf/b971acc9a06830e749256a1e003e8504/82e76405586c09a149256c07002a4351?OpenDocument
The problem was that I had radio connection, but no IP. Unless I am doing something wrong, it looks like the DHCP died on their network Anyone have any experience with this LAN in particular?
I'll try again on my way back.
Sameer

--
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/

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