Wireless Quilts. What are they and why are they necessary to Smart Mobs?
In short, wireless quilts, or 802.11b access points, allow Smart Mobs (mobile phones, PDA’s, laptops, etc…) the ability to wirelessly access the World Wide Web (the Internet) through “hotspots” in their homes, workspace, restaurants, parks, coffee shops, shopping malls, bookstores, movie theatres, libraries, airports, hospitals, etc.
A hotspot is nothing more then a wireless router “broadcasting” the 802.11b signal at various locations. Cities, especially New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Boston, have been proving grounds for the effectiveness of a wireless quilt community. The general public can be sitting in a coffee shop, such as Starbucks, and surf the Internet on their phone or laptop all while drinking a cup of coffee. Furthermore, if a person’s phone is WiFi capable, they can walk down the street in most cities and access the Internet to check their email or surf the web.
Here’s the rub: WiFi setups in cities aren’t necessarily free. Most provides such as T-Zones (which are big with Starbucks locations), require the end-user to subscribe to a service, which gives them a username and password to log into the system.
Howard Rheingold, and his colleague, feel that access points or “wireless quilts” should be free to use. In fact, Howard describes in some detail how some of his associates created early versions of free access points in the early days of 802.11b-style systems.
Wireless Lans (Local Area Networks) and “ad-hoc peer-to-peer networks” , which were network system where a groups of people used their systems together to create a blanket, or quilt, of free wireless access points, were the first systems developed to broadcast the Internet wirelessly and without the need for a company to “supervise”.
The systems themselves are free. Someone needs to subscribe to the initial ISP provider, but after that initial cost, the signal can be repeated (bounced) from router to router, say in a small village community, to allow wireless access to the masses at the cost of the single ISP monthly fee.
How is this broadcasting possible? The Radio Act of 1927 allocated the radio spectrum to broadcasters through licensing, and The Communications Act of 1934 established that airways are public property, that COMMERCIAL broadcasters must acquire a license to use the airways, but the mom and pop setups only need to prove their usage is in the public's interest, convenience or necessity. Providing free wireless access to the Internet would definitely fall into the realm of public interest and convenience.
When I first began to read the chapter on Wireless Quilts, I was sitting in a Starbucks in South Jersey. I looked around the shop and noticed at least 10 laptops, two iPhones and at least 5 Blackberry's burning up the airways and I thought to myself: "Imagine how much limited productivity would be accomplished if Starbucks didn't offer WiFi?" If you think about it, besides it being the Mecca of coffee, people go there for the interactive connectivity it offers. And though its not free, its probably cheaper to setup the account and go to the hundreds of Starbucks in the city and do your online work then to pay a monthly ISP account- at least that's what some of my co-workers say. None of them pay for Internet. They surf at work, "steal" free WiFi from areas that don't password-protect their network and hop from coffee shop to coffee shop that offers free WiFi access. In many respects their living the interactive life that Colonel Dave Hughes, USA, Ret. was talking about when he and Rheingold spoke about the early days of the Internet, and especially the early days of WiFi.
Towards the end of the chapter I was stunned to find that Sony wants to WiFi chips in every TV set and PC it sells in Japan. Now this book was published in 2002, so I'm sure that in the 6 years since that we've see TV sets that are now WiFi-capable but aren't functional on account of the wireless quilt network isn't at that point yet. Amazing how even a TV will become more then its original design. Granted it will still perform its function: display audio/video media, but it won't be bound by an antenna or a cable box. No. If technology continues its course, we could see TVs that provide both broadcasting and online access through a wireless network.
Below is a YouTube video that explains the basics of a LAN network. It also discussed how to protect your network from people who would "cyber eavesdrop".
In short, wireless quilts, or 802.11b access points, allow Smart Mobs (mobile phones, PDA’s, laptops, etc…) the ability to wirelessly access the World Wide Web (the Internet) through “hotspots” in their homes, workspace, restaurants, parks, coffee shops, shopping malls, bookstores, movie theatres, libraries, airports, hospitals, etc.
A hotspot is nothing more then a wireless router “broadcasting” the 802.11b signal at various locations. Cities, especially New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Boston, have been proving grounds for the effectiveness of a wireless quilt community. The general public can be sitting in a coffee shop, such as Starbucks, and surf the Internet on their phone or laptop all while drinking a cup of coffee. Furthermore, if a person’s phone is WiFi capable, they can walk down the street in most cities and access the Internet to check their email or surf the web.
Here’s the rub: WiFi setups in cities aren’t necessarily free. Most provides such as T-Zones (which are big with Starbucks locations), require the end-user to subscribe to a service, which gives them a username and password to log into the system.Howard Rheingold, and his colleague, feel that access points or “wireless quilts” should be free to use. In fact, Howard describes in some detail how some of his associates created early versions of free access points in the early days of 802.11b-style systems.
Wireless Lans (Local Area Networks) and “ad-hoc peer-to-peer networks” , which were network system where a groups of people used their systems together to create a blanket, or quilt, of free wireless access points, were the first systems developed to broadcast the Internet wirelessly and without the need for a company to “supervise”.
The systems themselves are free. Someone needs to subscribe to the initial ISP provider, but after that initial cost, the signal can be repeated (bounced) from router to router, say in a small village community, to allow wireless access to the masses at the cost of the single ISP monthly fee.
How is this broadcasting possible? The Radio Act of 1927 allocated the radio spectrum to broadcasters through licensing, and The Communications Act of 1934 established that airways are public property, that COMMERCIAL broadcasters must acquire a license to use the airways, but the mom and pop setups only need to prove their usage is in the public's interest, convenience or necessity. Providing free wireless access to the Internet would definitely fall into the realm of public interest and convenience.
When I first began to read the chapter on Wireless Quilts, I was sitting in a Starbucks in South Jersey. I looked around the shop and noticed at least 10 laptops, two iPhones and at least 5 Blackberry's burning up the airways and I thought to myself: "Imagine how much limited productivity would be accomplished if Starbucks didn't offer WiFi?" If you think about it, besides it being the Mecca of coffee, people go there for the interactive connectivity it offers. And though its not free, its probably cheaper to setup the account and go to the hundreds of Starbucks in the city and do your online work then to pay a monthly ISP account- at least that's what some of my co-workers say. None of them pay for Internet. They surf at work, "steal" free WiFi from areas that don't password-protect their network and hop from coffee shop to coffee shop that offers free WiFi access. In many respects their living the interactive life that Colonel Dave Hughes, USA, Ret. was talking about when he and Rheingold spoke about the early days of the Internet, and especially the early days of WiFi.Towards the end of the chapter I was stunned to find that Sony wants to WiFi chips in every TV set and PC it sells in Japan. Now this book was published in 2002, so I'm sure that in the 6 years since that we've see TV sets that are now WiFi-capable but aren't functional on account of the wireless quilt network isn't at that point yet. Amazing how even a TV will become more then its original design. Granted it will still perform its function: display audio/video media, but it won't be bound by an antenna or a cable box. No. If technology continues its course, we could see TVs that provide both broadcasting and online access through a wireless network.
Below is a YouTube video that explains the basics of a LAN network. It also discussed how to protect your network from people who would "cyber eavesdrop".
4 comments:
Great rundown on the information. Very well done...
I always heard the idea of the network quilt referred to in the past as a network umbrella. Ar they one and the same? I'm not really sure except that it may be that the umbrella is a purposeful distribution of wi-fi? I don't know. However I do know that there are several nodes in Central Park creating that umbrella. (http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/wifi/index.html)
I don't much like going into Starbucks unless I absolutely have too. Also I have a router at home that I have password protected, but i must admit that I have been guilty of grabbing someone else's signal from my car when out in the world. Although I'd never mess with their settings as suggested as a possible consequence of an unprotected net-connect - I may have occasionally slowed down their connection with a large streaming download.
I am constantly annoyed by the argument that you need to protect yourself against things like "child pornography", and therefore password protect your wireless network. Anyone with a brain could figure out that that argument is used basically to scare people into paying for their own password protected network, resulting in more profit for the ip companies that are freaked out at the notion of people sharing their networks.
I find it ridiculous that I can sit in my house and get 10 wireless signals, but they're all closed. I mean, following this logic one could say you shouldn't share anything, because somebody else COULD do something illegal with it...this is the logic of capitalism, no?
but this is not to say that people should not be compensated for their labor - but rather, people should be compensated for their labor especially when it is for the public good - imagine a single payer system for communication technologies...
First of all I love the visual image of both a wireless quilt and wireless umbrella. They remind me of looking down over New York City when your plane is coming in for a landing at LGA.
As far as public interest goes... Internet is top notch. Our culture so frequently uses it now, it would seem to be a need. But I see an insurmountable obstacle in the way of free wi-fi. Wi-fi privatization drives profit. And as Olga mentioned... we live with capitalism so the public interest therefore gets trumped.
If it were a public NEED such as food maybe we could have wi-fi stamps.
This chapter answered a lot of my questions about the whole world of WIFI...I hear people throw the term "Wifi" around all the time (especially my friend who recently purchased an ipod touch – God, I want one!) and I never really knew what the heck they were talking about when they would say “oh they must not have a Wifi”. All I knew was it was something to do with wireless internet and I recently became curious about it. When ever explained by other people, they refer to Wifi connections as “stealing” a wireless internet connection. And that is what I could never really understand. How can one just steal someone else’s connection? How is that possible? Now I have a better understanding of it and it’s not really stealing. It’s more of a network quilt or umbrella. I always wondered how that worked…how people can sit on the train, in the park or in a coffee shop on their laptops connected to the internet. I always thought you had to be some computer or internet genius to log on. Now that I know, I think it’s time I went wireless
Post a Comment