IP: The story still has legs...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
>
> [Note:  This item comes from reader Tim Pozar.  DLH]
>
> At 21:47 -0800 11/15/01, Tim Pozar wrote:
> > From: Tim Pozar <pozar () lns com>
> > To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> > Subject: The story still has legs...
> > Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 21:47:51 -0800
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> >
> > There is an article going up in the NY Times soon too...
> >
> > Tim
> > --
> > <http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000091346nov15.story>
> >
> > Cutting the Cord
> >
> > Activists are crafting a vision of high-speed Net access, one free of 
> > wires and monthly charges.
> >
> > Dave Wilson
> >
> > November 15 2001
> >
> > MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- It's around noon on a busy Friday when
> > Rick Potts, a software engineer at Netscape Communications Corp.,
> > walks into the Dana Street Roasting Co. and gently sets his laptop
> > computer on a table near the front door. He turns it on and quickly
> > links to a wireless high-speed Internet connection.
> >
> > There are a lot of coffee bars in the Silicon Valley that let you
> > do this sort of thing, but Dana Street is different. Here the
> > connection is free, courtesy of a computer sitting benignly underneath
> > a sink behind the counter.
> >
> > "I just like to come here and work sometimes," Potts said. "I enjoy
> > the flexibility. It makes for a nice work experience." In addition
> > to work, he can check in with friends, see what's playing at the
> > movies and make a dinner reservation. Potts and hundreds of others
> > have used the Dana Street wireless Internet pipe in the months since
> > local technology entrepreneur Ross Finlayson installed it so he
> > could use the coffee shop as a second office. "I basically set it
> > up as a convenience for me," he said. "But it turns out lots of
> > other people find it convenient too."
> >
> > Finlayson, and thousands like him all over the world, are crafting
> > a new vision of Internet access, a cooperative, community-based
> > endeavor that provides wireless high-speed bandwidth, eliminating
> > monthly fees charged by telephone and cable companies.
> >
> > These activists are cobbling together systems in garages and attics,
> > taking the wired high-speed connections that come into their homes
> > and throwing them open to neighbors. This utopian vision of free,
> > high-speed access, any time and anywhere, is rooted in the earliest
> > days of the Internet, when colleges and universities freely pooled
> > computing resources and made them available to anyone connected to
> > the system.
> >
> > "We are putting these things out there and creating communities,"
> > said Tim Pozar, a San Francisco telecommunications engineer who is
> > at the forefront of the movement in the Bay Area.
> >
> > Pozar, 43, helped create one of the earliest Internet service
> > providers a decade ago by stringing cables through San Francisco
> > neighborhoods.  People didn't see the importance of Internet access
> > until they had it, and once they had it, they wanted more. He sees
> > providing cutting-edge technology to people who otherwise would not
> > have access as a moral imperative.
> > [...]


For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/