Dear Starbucks and AT&T: fix your WiFi!

Technology on the road has a reputation for being finicky. Some of this difficulty is unavoidable. But other technology challenges are easily remedied through decent design and forethought.

Does an open WiFi signal reduce your 4th Amendment protections?

A federal trial court in Oregon ruled that a suspect’s rights were not violated when police — tipped by a neighbor — accessed his unprotected WiFi network and saw child pornography shared via his iTunes library.

The Failure of Public WiFi

Image by Getty Images via Daylife
SSRN-The Failure of Public WiFi by Eric Fraser:
This short piece describes the failure of the widespread plans to provide public wireless internet access. It identifies three interrelated types of causes for the near-universal failure of these ambitious plans: regulatory, technical, and economic.
As the article points out, WiFi – while incredibly [...]

Starbucks ditches T-Mobile for AT&T

Ubiquitous caffeine conglomerate Starbucks has ended its Wi-Fi partnership with T-Mobile in favor of one with AT&T.

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NetworkWorld.com Community – Whose bandwidth is being given away? :
But it’s on the point of ISP terms of service that I believe Schneier’s case falls. First, he expresses no concern whatsoever about others stealing his bandwidth from his open network — “pay it forward,” he suggests.
But bandwidth isn’t the only issue here, at least not [...]

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Wired Security Matters – Steal This Wi-Fi:
Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people — and attracts the most criticism — is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There’s no password. There’s no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my [...]

Computerworld – Prediction: Starbucks Wi-Fi will soon be free:
When Starbucks introduced for-pay Wi-Fi in 2002, it seemed like a great deal (especially for business customers who could expense it). But five years later, the model appears old and stale and ready for a complete overhaul. Prediction: Starbucks will start rolling out free Wi-Fi access within [...]

Now Part of Meraki's Free the Net SF

I’ve just received my free Meraki Mini, and put it in my window. Now my neighbors should be able to see the “Free the Net” signal, and hopefully we can get some momentum to spread the network to this part of SF!
Your San Francisco neighbors are building a free wireless network, and you can be [...]

EarthLink said late Wednesday that it is bailing out of a contract to build San Francisco’s free Wi-Fi service.
Earlier on Wednesday, the city of Houston announced that EarthLink had agreed to pay a $5 million penalty to the city for not meeting its first deadline for building its wireless network. EarthLink has nine months to [...]

Clearwire Wireless Broadband Review

Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) is a broadband Internet Service Provider with a twist: it’s wireless. The sleek Clearwire modems use a licensed 2.5 GHz technology (not line-of-sight) instead of the standard, unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency of 802.11 WiFi devices, and in my testing, seemed to perform quite well. (Please note: I tested out their service as [...]

Why Provide Free WiFi?

Why should hotels, cafes, and other service-oriented establishments offer free WiFi to their customers?

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© 2005-2010 by Kristopher Nelson. Want to republish? Get permission. Want to quote? That's fair use.

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