Journal Jack William Bell's Journal: WiFi a gogo 2
Right now I am in the 'It's A Grind & Urban Mill Cafe' of Grand Rapids Michigan, enjoying a fair bowl of Cincinatti style chili and some quite good french roast (freedom roast?) coffee. This post comes to you courtesy of the wireless link provided by the cafe.
My wife found this free connection for me using WiFinder, which bills itself as a 'worldwide hotspots directory'. Definately a cool resource if you want to slip in your 802.11B card and surf the web someplace you don't have a Net connection.
Personally I have been a fan of wireless networking ever since I started using Ricochet in Seattle many years ago. Now recovering from bankruptcy and a forced sale (and a shadow of its former self), Ricochet was especially nice because it provided access almost anywhere in the greater Seattle and Eastside areas of King County. In fact I used it as my only ISP for over a year, nearly always getting better speeds than they were advertising. In the process I made some interesting discoveries: I really liked having 'Internet Everywhere'... Coffee shops and city parks can be the nicest places to work... The laptop will slide off your knees in the bathroom... (I can hear the cries of "TMI! TMI!", so I will leave it at that.)
802.11B, (and A, G, and whatever follows) could provide that same kind of 'Internet Everywhere' experience, but it seems pretty unlikely. It would require a massive investment in infrastructure on the public level. Although very interesting conceptully, a successful volunteer, community-based, effort of the scale required seems unlikely.
3G Cellphone technology might work, but currently the US implementations leave a lot to be desired. Plus it is really too expensive and difficult to use the way I like. Take this post for example. In the process of writing it I have searched for links, looked up synonyms and checked my email. All between bytes of chili. Try that with a cellphone!
Perhaps it might be possible with voice recognition and agent technology. But you can't pack that kind of horsepower into a cellphone yet. Much less give one a decent keyboard for a touch-typist like myself. But it could happen. My acquaintance/friend Donna McMahon wrote an SF novel called 'Dance of Knives' set in a world where cell phones and personal computers have merged to the extent that everyone just carries a 'phone' and do use it in just the way I describe. (Buy it and read it, DoK is a damn fine first novel and I expect she will only get better.)
But right now I would be satisfied if every coffee shop, book store and hotel provided free WiFi. The cost is minimal, certainly less than the extra business it might bring. It doesn't even have to be all that fast if all you want to do is check your email and post to your
that cafe (Score:1)
Another one (Score:1)
--Scott