Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:18 UTC (Thu) by tjw.org (guest, #20716)
Parent article: Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

All that comes to my mind is my last "vacation". I was repeatedly called by my employer with the crisis-of-the-moment. While traveling (escpecially in an area unknown to me) finding a wireless network was hectic to say the least. I had to pull out my CC to open a new "account" in every occasion (e.g. Starbucks).

I remember thinking to myself how great it would be to have some sort of uniform 802.11 network like the cellular network. I don't mind paying for the access, I don't care if it's provided by the govt., I just want it to be simple and prefeably not require me to dish out my credit card and billing information in every neighborhood I stop in. In one instance I even had to hand over my laptop to have my WEP keys overwritten.

Municipal networks would provide 2 great services for me:

1) a well published zone of coverage (no more war-driving the coffee shops and scanning all the window signs)

2) access standards. (no more surrendering financial information to companies unknown to me).

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Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:25 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link]

Get Internet access through your cell providor. This is what my boss does. He has Sprint I believe. You connect the cell-phone to your laptop and dial through it much like a modem. The speeds are horrendous but you get access pretty much anywhere you are.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:27 UTC (Thu) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469) [Link]

I wouldn't say horrendous. My co-worker does the same thing and he gets 144kbs synchronous,
which is a good bit better than dial-up and certainly enough to do remote administration
through Citrix or OpenSSH.

144kbps synchronous...

Posted Aug 4, 2005 19:02 UTC (Thu) by JohnBell (guest, #12625) [Link]

... which is the combined bandwidth of ISDN 2B+D. Remember when ISDN was considered blazingly quick? Now, we can at least get equivalent bandwidth from cell service (I'm not sure how the latency compares, however).

Say what?

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:33 UTC (Thu) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link]

I'm in agreement that it would be nice if WiFi would be everywhere, but please reconsider the logic of your statements.

First you say: "I don't mind paying for the access, I don't care if it's provided by the govt.,"

Then you say: "no more surrendering financial information to companies unknown to me"

If you subscribe your first statment you've given away *EVERYTHING*, your financial and personal information and invited the enemy into your BEDROOM!

Say what?

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:58 UTC (Thu) by tjw.org (guest, #20716) [Link]

If you subscribe your first statment you've given away *EVERYTHING*, your financial and personal information and invited the enemy into your BEDROOM!

My concern is theft, not privacy. I'll gladly give CC, billing address, mother's maiden name, even my SSN to a government entity. I'm not too concerned that they will rob me.

I'm also not too concerned about being spyed on by city governments. Not only don't they have the budget for it, I'm just not that damn interesting. On the other hand, if a law enforcemnt agent wants to spy on you, it doesn't really matter if the service is provided by the city or Starbucks. A warrant is a warrant and the PATRIOT act is a warrant.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 16:58 UTC (Thu) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link]

> All that comes to my mind is my last "vacation". I was repeatedly
> called by my employer with the crisis-of-the-moment.

Turn off your cell phone when you are on vacation. Problem solved.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 21:28 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]

I second. We've let the ruling class use our love of technology to enslave us.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 17:43 UTC (Thu) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link]

Yeah your "vacation" and your boss don't sound good. You need to be assertive over issues like this I find. (Proper) Vacations aren't a luxury they are needed for sanity by everyone!