[MIT has created a great tool for exploring the use of its campus-wide Wi-Fi network":1. The tool displays a real time view of the location of each Wi-Fi user on campus, and provides a way to visualize the patterns of network use over time. Its not a tracking tool per se, but rather a trend analysis tool.
I'd love to see a tool like this available on all public networks (anonymous of course). Some of the tools in WifiDog -- a centralized hotspot management tool that "NYCwireless":2 is working to deploy -- enables a form of this statistical analysis (its a start, anyway). With a little more work it would be possible to easily see the trends of use of public wireless networks like "NYCwireless":2 and "Île Sans Fil":3. With a bit more work, we will be able to tease out trends that bridge both online use and changes in the physical world environment (time of day, sales, events, etc.). This type of analysis will be particularly important especially for large scale networks like those planned for deployment in Philadelphia and San Francisco.
[1]http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1700AP_Wireless_Campus.html
[2]http://www.nycwireless.net
[3]http://www.ilesansfil.org
Filed under: News, Urban Wireless
