[Vision2020] wireless public access points

[Eric Flanery]

Guess I should chime in on this, since it's my specialty.

The Almon-Asbury water tower (also known as 'Residence') does have a
powerful system on it, however it will not provide free service, you
would need a First Step roaming account to talk to it.

As far as connecting to multiple providers, that is common practice for
large business. It's known as multi-homing, and I can't imagine anyone
having a problem with it, unless you were to redistribute or resell the
service, or transfer one providers data over the others connection (which
is not a easy thing to do, and requires $sophisticated$ equipment).

However, when taking advantage of free access provided at a HotSpot, it is
preferred that you be supporting the activities of the sponsor, to
compensate them for providing the access (such as eating at Arbys while
using their HotSpot). Legally, if one of the HotSpot providing
establishments took offense at your use of their system, without
compensating them (buying a burger, or whatnot), they could make a case
for "theft of service". The same way Adelphia will go after you if you put
a splitter on your neighbors cable, it can even be a felony. Due to the
nature of the medium, this is not always possible to enforce (at least
without adding annoyance, such as forced WEP keys, which can _easily_
be overcome by someone with the appropriate knowledge and tools, etc...),
but please remember that someone is paying for the service, and if you are
not compensating them in a manner they find acceptable, you are essentially
stealing. Also, the systems are usually designed to provide service within
the sponsoring establishment, and may be flakey at best if used from a
significant distance.

In a very few cases, such as here at the Eastside Marketplace, there is
really no one to compensate (but feel free to support the businesses here
anyway), since we are directly providing the HotSpot. In our case, we just
make you click a button on an automatically presented website, with our
logo, and that of the Eastside on it (just a touch of advertising, to let
you know who is giving you something for nothing, in the hopes of enticing
you to sign up for an account). So come on in, sit down, click the button,
and enjoy. In most cases, though, someone is paying for the access at some
level, and has to justify the expense.

That said, we are always looking at ways to add more truly free coverage
(with slight restrictions, to encourage people to pay for top-shelf access
), and a system like Spokane would be wonderful for downtown. The devices
that they used there are really nice, made by a company called Vivato. We
have looked at them, and played around with one (very cool, a single unit
could cover the whole of downtown Moscow, if placed correctly), but they
are _much_ more expensive (by a few orders of magnitude) than a normal
access point (a single Vivato unit contains 13 radio chips, working in
concert; it also utilizes magnetic beam-forming, to greatly increase
the range and noise rejection). Justifying that sort of expense is not
easy, even if many people signed up for high-grade unlimited service.

So, enjoy the HotSpots out there, support those that need to be supported,
and keep an eye out for new ones.

Looking forward to making the whole Palouse region the most connected
place on Earth :-)
--Eric

Eric Flanery
Wireless Manager
First Step Internet
(208)882-8869

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Debbie Gray wrote:

> Wow, thanks for all the hotspots everyone sent!
>
> So if I am able to have wireless access from my house to several
> different providers, that is ok? I was worried I was commiting some
> sort of "beige collar crime" or something. And Donald Rumsfield would
> soon be SWAT swarming my house.
>
> Maybe it's because we are close to the university
> inn/arby's/branegans/mark iv etc? Or does it have something to do
> with living near the Almon-Asbury water tower? I was thinking maybe
> something was 'beaming' off of there? It's all so 'Star Trekkie' to
> me. I feel I am channeling my mother here, she is totally computer
> remedial and won't even use email.
>
> debbie (semi-literate computer user with a new laptop)
>
>
>
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