The Wireless City 268
bigfatlamer writes "This week's NY Times City Section has an article (FRRYYY) on wireless access in New York City's busiest park, Bryant Park. The director of the park has installed a free 802.11b network with complete coverage of the park with help from NYC Wireless. From the article: 'With some clever engineering and hardware from Cisco Systems and Intel, the wireless park was born. Just as park users could sit wherever they liked, so too could they gain access where they liked. The eight-megabytes-per-second connection was as free as the sunshine and the green grass.' NYC Wireless is currently working with the Parks Dept. to put similar networks in Madison Square and Tompkins Square Parks. If they could do Prospect Park (3 blocks from my house) life would be perfect." NYCwireless helps those who help themselves...
Not registered? No problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FRRYYY? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Unacountable bits? (Score:3, Informative)
node faq [nycwireless.net]
Is it secure? No! Wireless Ethernet is insecure by default. Any user on the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) can spy on unencrypted traffic from other wireless users. Wired connections are generally more secure when communicating with other servers. Users are advised to use SSL to connect to web pages and mail hosts, SSH instead of telnet whenever possible, and VPNs (virtual private networks) for all other data to ensure privacy and security. You may see literature saying that the 802.11b standard includes provisions for optional 40- or 128-bit link-level encryption over the air, however, current implementations require the encryption key to be shared by all users of the wireless LAN, effectively eliminating the usefulness of this security feature in an open network environment.
Also fyi: How to find access [nycwireless.net]
Private vs Public (Score:4, Informative)
See company's can do nice things...
Don't bash all of them
Already Done In Pittsburgh (Score:3, Informative)
Pah! I am sitting in Oakland (home of U Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon) with my iBook on a free Telerama connection. Apart from Telerama (which will turn to a paid service when they have the entire city covered), the City of Pittsburgh has a free net downtown, and Telerama and others cover all major neighborhoods.
When Telerama starts charging, I'll just cancel my ISP and use them everywhere. Free would be nice, but my ISP getting me wireless access everywhere in the city is great too.
Of course, Pitt, CMU and Duquesne have their own wireless points all over for their students/staff. It's already reality in Pittsburgh, buddy.
Re:FRRYYY? (Score:2, Informative)
Wireless Park In Portland (Score:5, Informative)
Interactive, engaging and site-specific applications are a click away. The Dialtone Symphony [flong.com] (.ram [dax.aec.at]) is wholly produced through the choreographed ringing of people's own cell phones. Here are some other ideas:
The Public Review Draft of Portland's Waterfront Park Master Plan [portlandparks.org] is available on-line.
The Morrison Bridge [bizave.com], in the center of Waterfront Park, has phone line access. An Orinoco 2500 [proxim.com] ($1000) could drive Wi-Fi repeaters [dailywireless.org] on the north end (near Saturday Market) and the south end, (near the Alexis Hotel), providing blanket coverage. The repeaters [dailywireless.org] could be camouflaged [dailywireless.org] as animals or Oregon historic figures [ochcom.org]. Waterfront Park also has a direct shot to the Council Crest tower [custommetalworks.com] where Winfield Wireless [winfieldwireless.com] has a wireless ISP.
Rent out Segway Scooters [segway.com] with built-in Pocket PCs. Your GPS position would trigger Oregon Historical Society's Narrated Neighborhood Tours [ohs.org], Portland Visitor's Association's Self-Guided Tours [pova.com], Portland Metro Maps [metro-region.org] or Lewis and Clark Maps [mapbureau.com]. Wireless cameras [dailywireless.org] could be helpful for the police, too.
Jacksonville Florida's free wireless hot spots [jaxwiz.org] provide tourist information as well as internet access. Multi-lingual kiosks, incorporating webtablets with language translation are available now. Text to speech can be output in a variety of languages. And it sounds good. Human voice samples are now incorporated into text to speech. Choose a language, respond by voice.
Parks have not caught up with the wireless society. Let's make it happen!
Re:Sustainability? (Score:2, Informative)
We've run into some problems with this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:heh (Score:4, Informative)
I first visited it because my girlfriend works for a downtown revitalization consortium in my city, and when I went to visit NYC (this was a couple years ago) she had me take a pile of photos and QuicktimeVR nodes of the park -- as it's the very model of an urban public park these days. It's a few blocks north of the Empire State building.
Awesome grass, pretty trees, an awesome view, upscale sandwich carts (reminds me of Central Park) -- and get this:
The tables and chairs in the park aren't concrete or nailed down. They're comfortable and light and you're encouraged to shift and move around anywhere on the block.
It's a *VERY* popular lunch and sunbathing spot.
It's a pretty huge experiment that's been really successful and is being copied by a lot of cities trying to revitalize their own downtown areas right now.
Sure, you get a couple of wierdos from time to time -- but, hell! It's New York City! You *PAY* to hang around those same wierdos in the Village come nightfall.
Re:hopefully they did it right.. (Score:3, Informative)
works great.
How about the other 13k Acess Points in NYC??? (Score:2, Informative)
From thier site:
That is a little better than just Bryant Park.
Re:heh (Score:2, Informative)