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Open Economies - Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access

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Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access

  • To: "'openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu'" <openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu>
  • Subject: Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access
  • From: "Moore, James" <jmoore(at)geopartners.com>
  • Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 11:40:53 -0500 
  
 
 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/technology/04WIRE.html


Here is the other article on WIFI, this by Amy Harmon.  Regards, Jim Moore

New York Times
March 4, 2002

Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access
By AMY HARMON
 
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.


[see above link for the rest of the article.  Go see it today, or you will
need a subscription.]
 <<Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access.url>>

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