WiFi and college choice

• 90% of college students say Wi-Fi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers
• 57% say they wouldn’t go to a college that doesn’t have free Wi-Fi
• 79% say that without Wi-Fi access, college would be a lot harder
• 60% agree that widely available Wi-Fi on campus is an indication that a school cares about its students

WiFi and where they use it

• 55% have connected from coffee shops and restaurants
• 47% from parks
• 24% from in their cars

WiFi in the classroom

• 55% have checked Facebook™ or MySpace™ and sent or received e-mail while using their laptop in class
• 47% have sent instant messages to a friend during class
• 44% used Wi-Fi to get a head start on an assignment before a class was finished

WiFi and linkbaiting statistics

• If forced to choose, 48% would give up beer before giving up Wi-Fi

Survey methodology: “In conjunction with the Wi-Fi Alliance, Wakefield Research surveyed 501 U.S. college students in September 2008. The sampling variation in this survey is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.”

I’m flying Virgin America from BOS to SFO, and apparently all their planes on that route offer in-flight internet via Gogo. $12.95 buys 3Mbps down and 300Kbps up (at least early on when nobody else seemed to be using it). I can get my iPhone online for only 8 bucks, but as far as I can tell, I’d have to buy two plans if I wanted to use both on this flight.

I resisted the urge to try video chat, but I’m glad Adam didn’t. The novelty was apparently enough to bring most of the team into his office to see. The results are above. Adam says my video stream was better than it appears above for most of the conversation. Still, my efforts at pointing the camera out the window were mostly futile.

Aside from the turbulence, it’s been mostly like a day in the office. I read email, I do a little bit of coding…. I somehow don’t think I’ll bother with this on the way back (though I will appreciate the power outlets that let me charge my computer while listening to the larger music collection).

I thought the matter was dead after Boeing shut down their much hyped in-flight WiFi plans (yep), but Engadget got a seat on JetBlue’s private introductory flight for their WiFi service. The good news is that it’s free, the not surprising news is that Yahoo! is partnering in it (and it requires a Yahoo! account), the bad news is that all you get is Yahoo! IM and email. No web browsing, or anything else useful. Well, that and there’s no power outlets.

Corporate networks are defenseless against the growing threat from instant messaging, and the government warns WiFi is insecure and easily sniffed.

Experts suggest we take precautions against the growing risk of p2p software that’s exposing sensitive documents and threatening national security.

Businesses blame security problems on their employees, their mobile devices, and other consumer technologies.

And now we have MySpace.

Now that I’ve moved I’ve finally set up my Fonera. I had hoped to offer a story about the process, but it was so simple I can’t really say much more than “I plugged it in, I registered it, it worked.”

The Fonera is a tiny little router/WiFi access point that looks worlds better than the average Linksys/Netgear/Belkin job, but the real sweetness is in what it does that they don’t do.

(Fon = the company, Fonero = users, Fonera = the WiFi router.)

Back in Warren I was happy to leave my WiFi open, I thought of it as my civic duty to leave it open for all in range — especially to test the stereotype that some nefarious stranger would be outside in a car sapping my signal. But here in the big city (*cough*), I did start to think that some sort of click-wrapper forcing users to agree to abide by relevant laws wouldn’t be a bad idea.

And though the public signal from my Fonera isn’t free to use (unless you’re a Fon user yourself), it’s still cheap ($2/day) and convenient.

The sweet thing is that the Fonera broadcasts both public and private channels, and I get a WPA encrypted connection for my personal use (note: WPA is thin protection, always use SSH or SSL). And, of course, anybody I share my WPA password with can get on for free as well.

Summary:

• A sweet router/AP
• Free roaming on the Fon network
• Click-wrap protection for your public signal
• A good feeling that I’m expanding the geography of available (though not really free) wireless coverage

What’s especially interesting in this, and something corporate types everywhere should pay attention to, is that Fon is getting suckers like me to build network infrastructure. Starbucks and T-Mobile had to do lots of talking and invest lots of money to get just 5000 locations, but Fon has already given away a batch of 10,000 routers, is selling more, and has 44,000 users (though I can’t tell if that’s users with hotspots, or all users including Aliens).

Fon advisory board member David Weineberger:

The aim is to provide enough incentives, and make it easy enough technically, that thousands of people will start providing Fon hotspots. Bottom up we can have a global network, usable for free by those who choose to share access for free and for an affordable fee by others.

It also doesn’t hurt that the company is now targeting the Starbucks/T-Mobile partnership that’s defined mass-market coffee shop WiFi since the dawn of ages.

In this context, it’s worth remembering what the FCC says about WiFi: landlords can’t regulate or limit radio emissions, only the FCC can (not that it hasn’t been argued).

Extras: The router software is supposedly based on the F/OSS DD-WRT, and Glenn Fleishman has way more details.

Fon, Fonera, Fonero, connectivity, crowdsourcing, grass roots networking, mass, network, wifi, wireless

No sooner do I lay down a rant about how bad Sprint WiFi is than do they run an ad telling us how great their service is. Well, not only that, but they promise to save us from “Connectile Dysfunction.”

Angela Natividad described it best:

It’s hard to position broadband ads. You can be like Earthlink, which kind of laughs at the whole idea of marketing in general, and you can be like Comcast, which takes the easy way out with off-colour humour. Or you can make up a disease, kind of like Microsoft, and propose that your product will in fact cure it.

There’s a fine art to this tactic. A good rule of thumb: the closer you can get your made-up disease to sound like a sexual disorder, the better. Maybe people will get confused and mistakenly believe you could solve both problems, not just (the invented) one. Cute, Sprint. Cute.

It would all be chuckle-worthy enough if — as Zach and Matt pointed out when the shared the ad with me — if I hadn’t just complained about how lousy their Wifi service is.

wifi, video, sprint, made up stuff, connectile dysfunction, bad service, ads, ad

I’m back in Oakland Airport, but this time I’m bringing my own network and I don’t have to deal with Sprint’s WIFI mess.

See, the problem isn’t just that it costs too much. The problem is that once you pay, you’re plopped at the login page where the login I just created doesn’t work.

And worse, the error offers absolutely no clue about why the username I just just created (and paid for!) would fail. NONE.

Fortunately, I’d left my signup confirmation open in another tab and was able to go back to look at the fine print. It was there that I learned I might have to log in with my username@wifi.sprintpcs.com. Might!

error message, errors, oak, oakland airport, sprint, suck, ui, wifi

In another sign of the arrival of the stupendous, i.e. that the internet is changing our world, Engadget some time ago reported on the SellSmart Knockbox real estate selling dohicky.

What is a KNOCKBOX?
A KNOCKBOX is a sleek, self-contained appliance that is placed unobtrusively inside your home for sale. It contains a photographic tour, custom buyer presentation, and other important details about your home, which potential buyers can access without ever having to enter your home.

…

The KNOCKBOX, however, does not provide direct access to the Internet; the only information they can browse is the information about your home.

Why KNOCKBOX?
Anyone with WiFi capability will be able to obtain a tour on demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Potential buyers are provided additional information about the property, along with agent contact information that they need to go to the next step and become a serious buyer. A potential buyer simply connects to the KNOCKBOX wirelessly and opens their web browser. This all occurs, without interfering with your busy schedule.

In short, the guy sitting in his car across the street with his laptop in hand could either be horking free wifi from you or your neighbors, or he could be quietly clicking through the virtual tour of that house for sale.

arrival of the stupendous, electronic real estate information, knockbox, real estate, sell your home, sellsmart, sellsmart knockbox, wifi

Here’s a lesson the rest of the world’s airports could take from PDX: free WiFi.

Most other aiports charge dearly for WiFi, but PDX offers it free. Knowing this, I arrived at the airport a couple hours early and got my dinner and caught up on my email here instead of elsewhere. The Port of Portland didn’t get my $7.95 an hour, but they did get an extra customer in their restaurants and shops.

And now that my flight is delayed (because the incoming flight had to land in Denver to top off its fuel tanks!), the WiFi is giving me something to do besides complain (I’m saving my book for on the plane).

wifi, airport, pdx, free wifi, hotspot, portland, oregon, portland or

Somebody at Gizmodo found this Agence France-Presse story about the intersection of American surfing and bathroom habits in The Hindustan Times. It’s based on a report by the USC Annenberg School’s Center for the Digital Future. For five years running now, the center has tracked internet use (and non-use) in a 2,000 household representative sample of America (choosing a new sample each year).

This year, researchers found: “Over half of those who used Wi-fi had used it in the bathroom.”

Gizmodo is going a little farther than I’d initially care to by asking readers to comment on their behavior, but I found this gem that reminds us that this may just reflect the evolution of our media: “The laptop in the john is the new newspaper for the millennium.”

I apparently have too many neatnik issues to go down that path, but rather than devolve the discussion, I’d like to point out that this Center for the Digital Future report appears to be a good complement to OCLC’s latest report and the regular stream of reports from the Pew Internet Project.

Now back to the funny: RSStroom Reader.

restroom, bathroom, rss, media, newspaper, report, Center for the Digital Future, wifi, in the bathroom, technology, computer use, behavior, research, on the throne, in the can

I do a lot of flying in and out of Boston’s Logan Airport, so I’ve been following the controversy about WiFi there with some interest.

The story is that Massport, the government agency that runs the airport, is trying to tell tennents — like the airlines — that they can’t operate their own WiFi networks. But the FCC previously ruled that landowners had no authority can control use of the WiFi spectrum on their premises.

Glenn Fleishman pointed out a November 25 editorial about the matter. The editorial calls Massports action a “frequency grab” and suggests a likely reason for Massports unusual interest in the matter:

[T]he airport has granted a monopoly to one provider that charges $7.95 a day, part of which comes back to the airport.

Massport’s complaint is about potential interference or use by terrorists, but Fleishman notes that

If Wi-Fi interferes with airport purposes than the airport is not operating itself correctly, and the TSA, FAA, and FCC should assert control over their use of spectrum until it’s sorted out.

The editorial remarks that the airport’s complaints don’t pass the “common sense test”

The airwaves in and around airports are used for hundreds of purposes, including cellphones, taxicab radios and local law enforcement. Yet Massport would have us believe that only Wi-Fi poses a problem.

Meanwhile, Atlanta has gone wireless, and Fleishman can’t help buy point out:

[N]ote that Atlanta is not whining, like Boston, about several existing Wi-Fi networks operated by airlines and others interfering with critical systems and emergency response.

tags: airlines, airwaves, atlanta, boston, cellphones, common sense test, editorial remarks, emergency response, faa, fcc, glenn fleishman, government agency, logan airport, massport, spectrum, taxicab, tsa, wifi

In case you’re looking: Metaphyzx’s Mac OS Wireless Adapter Compatibility List.

tags: apple, card compatibility, compatibility, compatibility list, list, mac, mac os, mac os x, macintosh, network adapter, wifi, wifi adapter, wifi cardbus card, wifi pc card, wifi pci card, wifi pcmcia card, wireless, wireless adapter, wireless adapter compatibility

A message came acrross the web4lib list a few weeks ago with the following request:

I want to hear from libraries who are currently implementing, or who already have implemented, wireless access for staff and/or patrons. I want your ’stories’–good, bad and ugly. Issues and/or triumphs with IT staff, vendors, library staff, library boards, faculty committees, etc. I’m looking for all aspects of the process-finding hardware, implementation, policy (!), training staff, marketing the service to your patron base, troubleshooting and maintenance issues.

My response included the following:

The problem, of course, is that vendors are well prepared to deliver solutions that appear secure for office environments, but public service environments change everything. Patrons use a broad range of equipment, most of it incompatible with the solutions targeted at private offices. It’s important to look in other markets — the hospitality industry, for example — for wireless implementations that work in public spaces.

I wasn’t leading the wireless charge at the time we were investigating a campus-wide installation, and I’m even further from it now, but I wrote a few posts that addressed the needs and concerns we face: The Wireless Security Landscape, Wireless Vulnerabilities, Better Networks Through Policy, and What For Wireless?.

In the end we chose Nortel’s Shasta Broadband Service Node (now renamed “services edge router”). It fits into a market segment Nortel defines as “visitor-based networking:”

Defined as the delivery of high-speed wireline or wireless Internet access for PC or handheld devices to users in need of temporary service in public places, a Visitor-Based Network is typically deployed in environments such as hotels, convention centers, airports, press areas or other meeting spaces

In a Visitor-Based Networking service area, visitors attempting to access the Internet through a browser will get an IP address and be redirected to a customizable, secure VBN portal. At the VBN portal screen, the visitor can self-provision a variety of network services based on application content, bandwidth and security requirements. For example, the visitor may choose pay-by-bandwidth or pay-by-time services. The VBN portal provides full support of customer-initiated debit and credit card billing options as well as hotel account billing.

tags: broadband service node, library wifi, network security, nortel, public access network, public access networking, public access wifi, public wifi, public access networks, vbn, visitor based networking, wifi, wifi in libraries, wifi security

When I finally get around to writing up my impressions of the Pepper Pad, I’ll be pointing to Roger Sperberg’s recent posts at TeleRead about non-PDA handhelds and computers for stand up use. At the moment, however, some of his points remind my of a few I’ve got to make about PDAs here.

I’ve got a Sony Clie TH-55, the top of the line of the last series they imported to North American shores. It’s got a big bright screen (for PDAs), WiFi and a camera that can shoot movies and .3 megapixel stills. It’s got all of that and a battery that I’ve never had below 65% despite hard camera and WiFi use at times, but I still find it nearly useless.

(Some of) my complaints? The WiFi gets poor reception and requires a long wait while the radio warms up and finds a signal before each use. Unlike most laptops, the WiFi isn’t running all the time and it’s like waiting for a modem to dial while it connects. Then, when the WiFi does connect, the web browsing is slow and painful on a screen that still has too few pixels to render most sites reasonably. Though bookmarks help, entering URLs in Graffiti 2 is like pulling out all my eyebrow hairs one by one. The keyboard solves that, but it using requires a desk and going down that road begs for comparisons against the laptop I could be using instead.

Still, these problems might be fixable. I depended on the handwriting recognition on my Newton to take notes in classes and meetings back in the day (far better than on any Palm OS or HPC I’ve ever used), so I’m holding out for something better yet from current handhelds. My use cases are changing, though. PIM apps are on devices everywhere, but I really like using Earthcomber when traveling. I need a great web browser that can remember web-site passwords and auto-fill forms like my desktop browser can. And it’s hard to know what will replace iPods, but I somehow see a device like the LifeDrive, perhaps with a camera, that might do the job.

None of that, however, should suggest that I don’t also see a huge market for products like the Pepper Pad.

tags: clie, complaints, graffiti, handwriting recognition, newton, newton message pad, pda, pda keyboard, pepper, sony clie, wifi

Old news from Gizmodo and Wi-Fi Networking News (quoting WiFi NN):

Skyhook has assembled a database of information about 1.5 million access points across 25 major cities in the U.S. by driving every street in every city. Their software records multiple data points per sample for directionality. Fire up their software on a laptop, and it compares the Wi-Fi information it sees with what’s in the Skyhook database, popping out a latitude and longitude within 20 to 40 meters.

Also geolocation related: Monopoly Live: London style.

tags: access points, geolocation, gps, mapping, monopoly, skyhook, wifi

Geolocation by GPS my be the most straightforward approach, but we mustn’t forget the other ways to get lat/lon coordinates.

All current cell phones support aGPS positioning to comply with federal E-911 mandates, but not all phones make it easy for the user to get that information out of them. Still, some do and GPS-enabled moblogging is becoming common in Asia and Europe, and there’s at least a public proof of concept going in the US.

Then there’s ethernet/WiFi. Plazes is a kind of social networking application that allows users identify their location based on their network fingerprint. Using the assumption that networks are typically stationary, Plazes then associates lat/lon coordinates to that network based on information submitted by user who ‘discovered’ the network. Plazes’ real trick, however, is to show me who else is online nearby. Problem is, I live and work in New Hampshire where I appear to be the only user online north of Virginia.

But the Plazes folks didn’t invent the concept of using network information to identify location. If I wasn’t so lazy I’d find the story I read a couple of years ago that mentioned it, but this June 2004 article in New Scientist tells the story of one such effort: PlaceLab (extra coverage at Engadget and ExtremeGPS). A Google search turned up Herecast and now Engadget is reporting on AllwaysOnGPS, a replacement GPS driver (for Windows PCs) that mixes GPS and WiFi derived location data to provide the most accurate info despite changing coverage.

Finally, one of my favorite solutions is to use Earthcomber in manual mode. The Palm application allows you to scroll around a map and mark locations as though they were waypoints in a GPS. And though that’s neat, it’s the mapping features that make it a winner. It’s far better than those lousy tourist guides in cities. I used to go to AAA for maps and guides in preparation for a trip, but now I check Earthcomber for area maps and updates.

Technorati Tags: agps, cell phone, coordinates, geolocation, gps, lattitude, longitude, map, mapping, maps, moblogging, network, networking application, palm, picture phone, social networking, wifi

I wasn’t really paying attention in June when WiFi Net News reported on a FCC decision regarding control of WiFi:

The FCC says landlords, associations can’t regulate Part 15 use: The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology says that the function of regulating and coordinating frequency use is reserved to the FCC itself. It’s a clear refutation of mall owners, airports, and condominium associations to limit use of Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies.
And it’s hard to put their conclusion any better than they themselves:[quote]The rules prohibit homeowner associations, landlords, state and local governments, or any other third parties from placing restrictions that impair a customer antenna user’s ability to install, maintain, or use such customer antennas transmitting and/or receiving commercial nonbroadcast communications signals when the antenna is located “on property within the exclusive use or control” of the user where the user has a “direct or indirect ownership or leasehold interest in the property, except under certain exceptions for safety and historic preservation.”

So this recent report that the Tampa Airport Thinks FCC Rules Don’t Apply was a more interesting news hit than might have been expected. It seems the Tampa airport authorities have retained counsel and are planning some appeal.

There was a recent spat at the University of Texas where they first tried to prohibit WiFi, the spent some time considering the use of private WiFi, then, recognizing the June FCC ruling rescinded the WiFi ban.

This would, of course, have local implications, if anybody tried to test it.

My opinion: this FCC ruling is actually good for consumers. If the FCC left it to landowners, they’d be creating local monopolies that charge high premiums for service. Further, since the ruling effects all unlicensed services, not just WiFi, it could be creating a regulations nightmare where other non-commercial spectrum uses, like FRS, might be banned or limited. Further, the ruling is actually about the use of radio spectrum, unlike recent copyright limitations mandated by the FCC.

fcc, wifi, unlicensed spectrum, rules, spectrum, University of Texas, regulation, frequency allocation