IP: Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>


March 4, 2002

Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access

By AMY HARMON
<http://nytimes.com/2002/03/04/technology/04WIRE.html>

When David Sarno moved to a new apartment on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan recently, he learned he would have to wait several weeks
for the phone company to install a fast Internet connection. But
after opening his laptop, he discovered with a surge of delight that
he was already able to check his e-mail and call up Web sites at
lightning-fast speeds.

Someone nearby had Wi-Fi, the technology behind the short-range,
inexpensive and often unsecured wireless networks that are rapidly
sprinkling the nation with sweet spots of airborne high-speed
Internet access.

"Thank God for my neighbor, whoever he may be," said Mr. Sarno, 29,
who has taken advantage of similar serendipitous connections from a
hotel room in Cambridge, Mass., and a street corner in downtown
Manhattan.

For Internet enthusiasts, Wi-Fi is manna from heaven. The technology
- known in engineering parlance as 802.11 - has been around a few
years. But with a recent proliferation of wireless data networks in
homes, businesses and public spaces, growing numbers of people who
have properly equipped laptops now find themselves able to tie into
the Internet on the run, courtesy - knowingly or unknowingly - of
someone else.

 From business travelers to a new breed of bandwidth hackers, people
are surfing the Web and collecting e-mail at airport lounges, coffee
shops, park benches and bed.

"Wi-Fi sort of came out of nowhere," said Tim Bajarin, president of
Creative Strategies, a technology industry consultant. "But it's
growing like wildfire."

Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity, works a lot like a cordless
phone. The D.S.L. or cable Internet line, instead of connecting
directly to a computer, is plugged into a small radio transmitter.
Any computer with a receiver in a radius of about 300 feet can
potentially pick up the signal.

Many of the free rides these days are the result of bandwidth
bleeding from private networks that are intended to let their owners
connect to the Internet without being tethered to a fixed spot in a
home or office.

Because the great majority of these wireless networks have not been
secured, it is easy for neighbors and passers-by to use them
undetected - although if enough freeloaders download large enough
files, legitimate users will notice their own connections are been
degraded.

The popularity of 802.11 has also begun to inspire the construction
of networks that are intended to be shared, either free or for a fee.

"It's a fantastic thing," said Simon Skelly, who recently hooked up a
Wi- Fi network to the high-speed Internet line in his apartment in
the West Village in Manhattan so he - and anyone else - can work from
the two cafes down the street. "It would be great if we could get the
majority of Manhattan covered."

Mr. Skelly is one of several hundred wireless enthusiasts across the
country who have listed the locations of their Wi-Fi networks on a
Web site called freenetworks.org.

One of the site's supporters, a nonprofit group called
nycwireless.org, recently persuaded the Bryant Park Restoration
Corporation to jettison a plan to provide Internet cables in a small
area of the park, in Midtown Manhattan. Instead, the restoration
group will finance the installation of an 802.11 network designed to
bathe the entire park in bandwidth this summer.

"We thought it would make people want to stay in the park," said
Daniel A. Biederman, executive director of the restoration group, a
private organization that oversees the park.

It may well do that. At the University of Akron, Internet use spiked
to three times its previous level when the school installed Wi-Fi
transmitters throughout the campus over the last year.

In San Francisco, community- minded entrepreneurs have set up a
wireless "cloud" over parts of the Presidio, which residents and
visitors can use free. And Tallahassee, Fla., has perched 50 Wi-Fi
transmitters on street lights and traffic signals in a five-block
area around the State Capitol complex. For now, legislators and
others in the area have free access, but the city plans to charge for
the service eventually.

The wireless buzz is being driven largely by the plummeting price of
802.11 equipment. Wireless network cards that slip into laptops now
cost less than $90, and many new computers come with the technology
built in. Wi-Fi transmitters cost less than $150, half the price
Apple Computer (news/quote) initially charged for its AirPort model -
one of the first to market - in late 1999. Antennas that can extend a
network's average range by several miles can be bought for as little
as $40.

Moreover, because 802.11 networks send data over an unlicensed slice
of the radio spectrum, there are no additional fees for the
transmissions once the equipment and wired Internet connection have
been paid for. That has led to some of the more ambitious plans to
create extended access areas.

<snip>



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