Public Wi-Fi networks may come (and go).
[ Posted by Dan on March 11, 2002 | 1 Comments ]

Even my non-geek friends know about Cringley's (somewhat larcenous) experiments with free wireless broadband internet access. And the idea is great, and gaining ground on the supply side. Witness the Newbury Open Network in Boston (well, it's one node's worth of access right now, but they plan on growth). Unfortunately, I have to assume that people will abuse this and any other Café Area Network (CAN) that comes on line.

I'd like to believe that CAN's would make the last mile problem a memory, but just as soon as people get access to a valuable resource, at super low cost, the abuse will happen. Just look back a few years to AOL's move to a fixed price model for unlimited access. That led to a massive increase in average online times, and severely taxed the modem pools. It was bad enough to warrant a class acton suit.

What do you think the CAN owner/operator will think when they see the bandwidth consumption rates when Limewire freaks find a megabit in the air?

 

		Thanks for the mention! FYI, we've increased the network to include 3 nodes - and usage has increased, but there's no adverse affect on our network - most of the traffic is between the hours of 6PM and 10PM, when we're not using our T1 heavily. Mike Oh Creator, NewburyOpen.net -Posted by Michael Oh on August 31, 2002 06:19 PM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).