Putting San Jose's free WiFi to the test

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Posted on Mon, Mar. 15, 2004


Putting San Jose's free WiFi to the test

By Jon Fortt
Mercury News
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/personal_technology/8190143.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp>

From the back patio of Sonoma Chicken Coop in downtown San Jose, I snagged 
a strong wireless Internet signal.

Then I lost it.

And then I got it back again.

This is the fickle nature of outdoor WiFi, a method of using radio waves to 
spread data connectivity over a large area. Sometimes it feels like a 
modern version of that pre-cable dance we did with TV antennas, trying to 
angle them just right so that we could pull down the least-fuzzy picture of 
``The Dukes of Hazzard.''

The city of San Jose, self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley, last week 
announced that three public spaces are now blanketed with free WiFi: Plaza 
de Cesar Chavez and the Circle of Palms, two areas abutting the Fairmont 
Hotel; and San Pedro Square, a strip of restaurants and bars that is more 
of a row than a square.

I had ventured out Friday morning, the day after the announcement, to see 
if this free WiFi network is all it's hyped up to be. It works, though it 
took a little tinkering. And it's pretty fast, but only about a quarter as 
fast as the 1.2 megabit-per-second DSL I get at home -- I clocked 309 
kilobits per second at one of the strong points.

I took two borrowed laptops on my WiFi-hunting expedition: an IBM ThinkPad 
T41 running Windows XP, and an Apple 15-inch PowerBook running OS 10.3.2.

Getting ready

Both have built-in wireless antennas and cards. If your laptop did not come 
``802.11-ready'' or ``WiFi-ready,'' you can buy a PC card that will add 
wireless to your laptop. Generally speaking, the process goes more smoothly 
with laptops running Mac OS X, Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

The PowerBook caught the first whiff of a wireless signal outside Taqueria 
La Mordida at the corner of Market and St. John, a full block from the 
center of the network. The signal wasn't strong enough to work with, 
though. I couldn't get any Web pages to load.

It wasn't until I reached the Starbucks at Santa Clara and San Pedro that I 
got what I thought was a real connection. When I checked the signal 
strength (upper right-hand corner on the PowerBook, lower right-hand corner 
on the ThinkPad) both indicated good levels. So from a chair outside, while 
a group of four women at the next table vetted the travails of corporate 
life and carpooling, I launched the Safari browser on the PowerBook and the 
Internet Explorer browser on the ThinkPad. Both automatically displayed the 
orange login screen for the free WiFi network.

Hmm, I thought. I have to register. Well, that's OK as long as long as they 
don't ask me for my e-mail address, age, or the name of my childhood cat. I 
clicked the registration link on the PowerBook.

Nothing.

Supposing it was a Mac thing, I clicked the registration link on the 
Windows laptop. Again, nothing. From where I sat, things looked bad for the 
new free WiFi network.

Calling for help

Most people's free WiFi trial would stop there; the free network home page 
didn't show a tech support number. But I happened to have the number for 
Derek Wise, CEO of Global Netoptex, which runs the free San Jose network. I 
pulled out my cell phone and gave him a call.

It turned out that I was still too far from the strongest swath of the WiFi 
signal, which is near Sonoma Chicken Coop on the east side of the street, 
and Peggy Sue's and Blake's Steakhouse on the west side. When I tried again 
from the Sonoma Chicken Coop's patio, the ThinkPad jumped right onto the 
registration page. It didn't require any personally identifying information 
-- only a username and my ZIP code -- and then I could go to any Web site I 
wanted.

Oddly, once I connected once, the signal seemed to hold better. I went back 
over by the Starbucks where at first I couldn't register, and I was able to 
load new pages. I even maintained a weak signal and could load pages on 
Santa Clara Street, and about 50 feet north on Market. I did find that when 
I temporarily lost a network connection, I usually had to close the Web 
browser, reconnect, launch the browser again and plug in my username and 
ZIP code to get back on.

If you want to try this network for any extended period of time, you'll 
probably want a place to sit. The WiFi signal is reliable only outside, so 
that means on San Pedro there are several options including Blake's, 
O'Flaherty's, Goodfellas, and 71 Saint Peter. The largest seating area 
that's WiFi-enabled is at Sonoma Chicken Coop.

San Jose is not the first city to host a free network -- there are 
grassroots networks popping up all over the Bay Area, particularly around 
San Francisco and Berkeley, where the 1960s ``free love'' provided the 
cultural foundation for today's hygienic ``free WiFi'' movement.

But now that San Jose has its own, it would be nice to see some of the 
businesses on San Pedro square promoting it. Scavenger hunts and trivia 
contests where wireless-enabled patrons e-mail in the answers would be one 
way to make the San Jose evening experience a little more . . . Silicon Valley.
 Contact Jon Fortt at jfortt () mercurynews com or (408) 278-3489.


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