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July 18, 2007 • 11:41 pm 0

NYCwireless July Meeting: Jul 25th at 7:00pm

All are invited – please re-post everywhere!

_Please note earlier starting time for meeting_

h2. Location and Time

*Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 7:00pm*
*”Bway.net”:http://maps.google.com/?q=568%20Broadway,%20New%20York,%20NY*
568 Broadway at Prince St, NE corner
Suite 404
New York, NY 10012
(lobby sign-in required)

h2. Agenda

-Ryan Sarver, Skyhook Wireless

Ryan is in charge of Product Development for Skyhook Wireless which includes products like Loki and Loki Mobile. He is also the Chair of LocationAware.org and is an Invited Expert for the W3C Ubiquitous Web Applications Working Group.

“NYCwireless”:3 monthly meetings are held on the last Wednesday of every month. They are free, and open to all, RSVP not required.

“NYCwireless”:3 is a non-profit organization that advocates for, and enables the growth of free, public wireless networks.

[3]http://www.nycwireless.net

Filed under: Community Wireless, Event, New York City, NYCwireless

May 17, 2007 • 10:20 pm 0

NYC Broadband Advisory Committee Meeting on May 22 in Brooklyn

The second NYC Broadband Advisory Committee meeting is being held next week at Brooklyn Borough Hall. NYCwireless was at the first meeting in The Bronx, and while it was mostly attended by the usual suspects, there were a few new people who testified, including both high school and college students from the area.

The Advisory Committee “has a blog”:4 and “email address”:mailto:nycbroadband@gmail.com.

bq. On Tuesday, May 22nd from Noon to 3 pm, in the Courtroom hearing room, on the 2nd floor of Brooklyn Borough Hall, the New York City Broadband Advisory Committee will convene its second public hearing to hear testimony from Brooklyn residents, nonprofit organizations and businesses. The Committtee would like to get feedback on the following questions:
* Why is a fast affordable Internet connection important to you?
* What do you consider an “affordable” fee to pay for an high-speed connection to the Internet?
* If you have a broadband connection, what do you use it for (e.g., help your child do his/her homework)?
* If don’t have broadband or if you had a faster connection to the Internet, what would you use it for (e.g., market your business on-line or look for a job)?

bq. Gale and I would like to thank the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz for their help in securing this beautiful space. Brooklyn Borough Hall is located at “209 Joralemon Street in downtown Brooklyn”:1. Here is a link to a Google map of where the hearing location, including where the closest subway stops are:

bq. *WITNESSES*: If you or anyone you know would like to testify at this hearing (and put on the official witness list), please contact “Jeff Baker”:mailto:jeffrey.baker@council.nyc.ny.us (212-788-9193), Counsel to the Committee on Technology in Government. Brooklyn parents of schoolchildren, schoolchildren, nonprofit leaders, small business owners and senior citizens are particularly encouraged to testify. Anyone who attends the hearing is also free and encouraged to testify with no advance notice required.

bq. *RATIONALE FOR THE BROADBAND ADVISORY COMMITTEE*: I recently published a “blog post in the Huffington Post”:3 regarding our championing of the New York City Broadband Advisory Committee and the issue of universal, affordable access to broadband in New York City.

bq. *COMMITTEE MEMBERS*: Here’s a list of the “members of the Advisory Committee”:4 along with their bios.

bq. *RECAP OF THE MARCH 30TH BRONX BROADBAND HEARING*: On Friday, March 30th, more than 200 people joined us on at Bronx Community College for the first-ever public hearing on broadband in New York City. Over 30 members of the public testified, including Bronx residents, public school students, leaders of nonprofit organizations and small business owners.

bq. The following are links to articles about the hearing in the Bronx on March 30th:
* “NY Daily News”:5
* “Newsday”:6
* “Metro”:7
* “NY1″:8
* “InformationWeek”:9
* “Norwood News”:10
* “Chelsea Now”:11
* “Civil Defense”:12

bq. A really good “audio 3 minute recap”:13 (or podcast) of the Bronx hearing is available. (Thanks Kat Aaron of WBAI!)

bq. The “entire video”:14 of the entire Bronx hearing is available. (Thank you BronxNet!)

bq. *BROADBAND BRIEFING PAPER*: Here’s a “briefing paper”:15 (by the Committee on Technology in Government, not the NYC Broadband Advisory Committee) on the subject of broadband. (Thank you Colleen Pagter, Policy Analyst of the Committee on Technology in Government!)

[1]http://www.google.com/maps?q=209+Joralemon+St,+Brooklyn,+New+York+11201,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title
[3]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-lai/the-future-of-digital-new_b_46221.html
[4]http://nycbroadband.blogspot.com/2007/03/list-of-members-of-committee.html
[5]http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/bronx/2007/03/27/20070327_air_your_views_at_wifi_public_hearing.html
[6]http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nybroa305151459mar30,0,4224312.story
[7]http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Bridging_the_digital_divide/7717.html
[8]http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=68237&search_result=1&stid=12
[9]http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198100613&subSection=Breaking+News
[10]http://www.bronxmall.com/norwoodnews/news/N70419page3.html
[11]http://www.chelseanow.com/cn_27/chelseahighschool.html
[12]http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2007/04/03/bac-audio
[13]http://odeo.com/audio/11062793/view
[14]http://www.bronxnet.org/c_program/whats_new/whats_new.htm
[15]http://nycbroadband.blogspot.com/2007/04/broadband-briefing-paper-type-here-full.html

Filed under: Event, New York City, NYCwireless, Policy

April 30, 2007 • 7:30 am 0

WSJ Online: ISPs, Businesses and Even Cities Seek to Offer Cheap or Free Connections — Which Will Win?

I was “recently interviewed”:1 about the recent “FON and Time Warner Cable announcement”:2 by Jason Fry for his Wall Street Journal Online column “Real Time”. FON and Time Warner Cable recently came to an agreement to allow TWC subscribers to set up FON hotspots. Much about this deal is unclear, including how the revenue sharing is working from FON to TWC (FON is surely paying TWC in some way).

Here are some excerpts from “my interview”:1:

bq. …

bq. Dana Spiegel, executive director of NYCwireless, is skeptical of the deal’s impact, seeing it as little more than a public-relations move for both companies. Fon’s network, he says, is “to be perfectly blunt, tiny” and predominantly residential, making it not particularly valuable in public places. Ms. Rees says Fon has 60,000 Foneros in the U.S., though she acknowledges that Fon may not have the visibility of, say, T-Mobile with its Starbucks locations. While she maintains Fon’s footprint will be more effective over the long term, “over the short term we have to be strategic.” An example of that strategy: a “Fonbucks” campaign in which Fon has given away free La Foneras to people living near coffee shops.

bq. Mr. Spiegel calls Time Warner Cable’s deal with Fon “a parasitic billing system … I’m paying the same amount of money for less service and Time Warner Cable is getting more money from what I’ve already paid for.” His volunteer group’s members create free hot spots in New York City parks and public spaces and help bring free wireless Net access to underserved communities. In his view, NYCwireless’s approach is better: “Instead of taking a reduction in my value and handing it back to Time Warner, I’m taking that value and spreading it out among my local community.”

bq. Then there are efforts by cities and towns to offer cheap or free Wi-Fi. The most celebrated such efforts are taking shape in Philadelphia and San Francisco, but many other cities and towns are pursuing that goal, motivated by a desire to bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor and eagerness to bill themselves as tech-friendly.

bq. One thing Mr. Spiegel and Ms. Rees seem to agree on: It’s too simplistic to see muni Wi-Fi as a threat to the aspirations of big ISPs and other wireless providers. Rather, muni Wi-Fi is likely to be complementary to such efforts. “What municipal offerings do is raise the baseline,” Mr. Spiegel says, contending that such services will primarily convert those left behind today. “Today’s baseline is dial-up. When municipal networks roll out, you’ll see a move from dial-up” up to a new baseline.

bq. …

bq. “When first introduced, [air-conditioning] was a luxury item,” Mr. Spiegel notes. “Stores that installed it saw a benefit. As it became more available, more and more stores added it and it became more of a cost of doing business.”

bq. So it will be with wireless. And as with air-conditioning, we’ll be startled to find ourselves going without now and again. We’ll even feel nostalgic about it.

[1]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117743976135380805.html
[2]http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/04-23-2007/0004571121&EDATE=

Filed under: Interview, Muniwireless, New York City, News, NYCwireless

April 4, 2007 • 9:57 am 0

Free Wi-Fi in Courthouse

I’m sitting today and tomorrow performing my jury duty (as any good citizen would), and one of the first things that the court clerk mentioned was that there was free Wi-Fi in the courthouse.

I’m impressed.

Frankly, for an administration who’s mayor (Mr. Bloomberg) thinks “we need to dig up streets to install wireless networks”:1, providing free Wi-Fi to jurors, who normally spend their day idling, waiting to be called, is a great service. It makes what would otherwise be a very boring day away from work actually productive (at least for those of us who work for internet enabled companies).

Many thanks to whomever made this happen!

[1]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/09/12/public-advocate-election/

Filed under: New York City

March 24, 2007 • 2:28 pm 0

Updated: NYC Broadband Advisory Committee Meeting on March 30 in The Bronx

A few weeks ago, I “posted information about the NYC Broadband Advisory Committee Meeting”:1 taking place on March 30. Here’s more information about the location and directions to the hearing. Also, the Advisory Committee “has a blog”:4 and “email address”:mailto:nycbroadband@gmail.com.

bq. Sponsored by Office of Council Member Gale A. Brewer (CD 6 – Manhattan), the Office of the Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Bronx Community College and the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SoBRO), the New York City Broadband Advisory Committee will hold its first public hearing on Friday, March 30, from 10 am to Noon, in the Gould Memorial Library Auditorium, Bronx Community College, University Avenue at W. 181st Street. Below are directions.

bq. *Directions via Subway*

bq. Take the 4 train to Burnside Avenue. Go west on West Burnside Avenue for 4 blocks until you reach University Avenue. You should see the campus of Bronx Community College (BCC) in front of you. Turn right on University Avenue, walking alongside the BCC Campus until you reach the Front Gate at W. 181st Street. Take a left up the stairs to enter the college. Be prepared to present identification to the Public Safety Officer at the front gate. Go straight until you reach Language Hall and take a right. Immediately after Language Hall is Gould Memorial Library on your left. The auditorium is downstairs on the lower level of the Library.

bq. Here is a map of the Bronx Community College campus: “http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/tour/tour.htm”:2

bq. *Handicap Accessible Entrance to Gould Memorial Library*

bq. The handicap accessible entrance is at the rear of Gould Memorial Library. To get to that entrance, instead of turning right at Language Hall, go straight down the path. Then take the next right. Go straight down the hill until you reach the back of Gould Memorial Library. To your right will be double doors, which will lead you to the handicap accessible entrance to the Gould Memorial Library auditorium.

bq. *Directions via Car*

bq. The following is a link to directions to Bronx Community College if you are driving: “http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/directions/directions.htm”:3

bq. Public parking is located immediately after you enter the car entrance to Bronx Community College.

[1]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2007/03/05/nyc-broadband-advisory-committee-meeting-on-march-30-in-the-bronx/
[2]http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/tour/tour.htm
[3]http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/directions/directions.htm
[4]http://www.nycbroadband.blogspot.com/

Filed under: Event, New York City, NYCwireless, Policy

March 12, 2007 • 8:22 am 0

DailyWireless Publishes 10 Most Connected Cities Report

“DailyWireless”:1, a great site with lots of technical and non-technical in-depth articles about wireless technology has published a report about the “The 10 Most Connected Cities in the World”:2.

Unfortunately New York City isn’t one of them. In fact, about half of them are cities in Asia, and most of the rest are ones in Europe. When the rest of the world is beating us at technology, we’ve really got to start working harder to catch up!

[1]http://www.dailywireless.com/
[2]http://www.dailywireless.com/features/most-connected-cities-030607/

Filed under: International, New York City, News, Urban Wireless

March 10, 2007 • 1:20 pm 0

Interview: Wireless co. — We’re a latte cheaper than Starbucks (The Villager)

Julie Shapiro interviewed me for an article she wrote in The Villager, a local NYC news-weekly titled “Wireless co.: We’re a latte cheaper than Starbucks”:1. The article talks about “FON” (about which I’ve written in the past) and their new plan to get people who live near Starbucks coffeeshops to install FON routers.

I talked to Julie about the fact that I’m very skeptical about FON’s plan, at least in New York City. First, for every coffeeshop in NYC, there’s maybe a couple of apartments that could offer competing coverage. And if the Starbucks is in a commercial building, the business on the 2nd floor isn’t going to install a FON router just to get the few dollars of revenue share that they might see.

bq. Most of the FON hotspots Spiegel has seen in New York City are in the apartments of people who live above the first or second floors. Since wireless Internet travels only 100 to 150 feet indoors, “Only a handful of apartments are able to take advantage of the hotspots,” Spiegel said. “Everyone else in New York City has no advantage.”

bq. While some Starbucks are located on the first floor of apartment buildings, others are in business buildings, surrounded by open lobbies with high ceilings, Spiegel said. In these cases, he doubts anyone will be able to take advantage of the FON promotion.

And of course, there’s the ISP acceptable usage policies, which make FON-type sharing illegal, unless you use an independent ISP or business-grade DSL connection:

bq. Besides, Spiegel said, sharing one’s Internet service can be illegal. Internet service providers like Comcast and Time Warner do not allow consumers to resell their Internet connection — in fact, consumers aren’t even allowed to give the connection away for free. Smaller companies like Speakeasy and bway.net, on the other hand, allow consumers to profit from reselling.

bq. Spiegel estimates that 99 percent of all Internet connections in the United States fall into the first category, making FON-style sharing illegal.

Plus, we believe that in public spaces and semi-public spaces, the internet should be free:

bq. On Gothamist.com, a New York City Web site, a poster named “jg” wrote, “Gross. Make Internet free.”

bq. While Spiegel and NYCwireless appreciate that FON educates the public about wireless Internet, he basically agrees.

bq. “NYCwireless has as philosophy that in public spaces, Internet should be free,” Spiegel said. “[FON has] a philosophy that you should be paying for the Internet in some way or another.”

[1]http://www.thevillager.com/villager_201/wirelesscowerealatte.html

Filed under: Interview, New York City, News, NYCwireless

March 5, 2007 • 11:48 pm 0

NYC Broadband Advisory Committee Meeting on March 30 in The Bronx

On March 30, the “New York City Broadband Advisory Committee”:6 will meet in the Bronx for the “first of five public hearings to both educate the public on broadband and learn from the public about their experiences, or lack of, with broadband and Internet technology in New York City.” Over the past couple of years, NYC Council Member Gale A. Brewer, based on the testimony of a number of New Yorkers, “including NYCwireless”:2, helped “create the Broadband Advisory Committee”:3 to try to move New York City to the forefront of broadband accessibility and affordability.

NYCwireless will be there to help represent the interests of free public Wi-Fi, which hasn’t had as extensive distribution as midtown and downtown Manhattan. We’ve heard from a number of people and organizations in the Bronx that there’s a tremendous interest in free public Wi-Fi. “We’ve been working with Professor John McMullen”:5 and his students at Monroe College to build more free hotspots in local businesses.

*If you have any interest in helping New York City get affordable, universal, ubiquitous high-speed internet access, you should join us at this meeting.*

The public hearing will be on March 30, from 9am-11am in the rotunda of “Bronx Borough Hall at 851 Grand Concourse”:4. Council Member Brewer and Borough President Carrion invite all Bronx residents, nonprofit organizations and businesses to testify about the availability and affordability — or lack of — of broadband (that is, a high-speed connection to the Internet) in their neighborhoods.

Some questions that the Committee has are:

# Why is a fast affordable Internet connection important to you?
# What do you consider an “affordable” fee to pay for an high-speed connection to the Internet?
# If you have a broadband connection, what do you use it for (e.g., help your child do his/her homework)?
# If don’t have broadband or if you had a faster connection to the Internet, what would you use it for (e.g., market your business on-line or look for a job)?

The hearing in the Bronx will kick-off a series of five public hearings that will be convened in every borough of New York City. Based on these hearings and with the help of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Advisory Committee will report their findings and recommendations to the Mayor and City Council.

[1]http://nycbroadband.blogspot.com/
[2]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/05/05/testimony-to-the-new-york-city-council’s-technology-in-government-committee/
[3]http://nyccouncil.info/issues/intros_act.cfm?intro=Int%200625%2D2005
[4]http://maps.google.com/?q=851%2BGrand%2BConcourse,%2BThe%2BBronx,%2BNY%2B(Bronx%2BBorough%2BHall)
[5]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2006/09/14/thank-you-letter-from-monroe-college/
[6]http://nycbroadband.blogspot.com/

Filed under: Event, New York City, Policy, Urban Wireless

January 26, 2007 • 12:25 am 0

Why Mesh Networks are a Really Good Idea for NYC and its Subways

“Sascha Meinrath writes about”:3 “why the use of proprietary wireless technology is an extremely bad idea”, especially when it comes to “NYC’s just announced police wireless network just installed in the subways of NYC”:1:

bq. So imagine my surprise when, in today’s New York Times, I read about the Police Wireless system that was just installed in the NYC subways. It doesn’t work — in fact, they’ve known that it wouldn’t work since 2001, but they built it anyway. And the pricetag? $140,000,000 already spent, with another $60,000,000 needed before it’ll be operational. Think about this a moment, $20,000,000 to wireless the city, $200,000,000 to wireless the subway for police use.

Sascha writes about how mesh wireless technology would have been a much better idea, along with open standards to ensure interoperability.

I wrote about how “mesh could be used to help build real broadband deployments in NYC”:2 over 1.5 years ago:

bq. Here again, mesh networks can play multiple roles. Nodes can disburse wireless internet backhaul from the city’s dark fiber and existing excess bandwidth via a mesh network mounted on lamp posts. That network can feed separate mesh networks that draw the internet up into and throughout a building like a tree drinks water. And people and businesses can move their lives and their livelihoods from building to building without causing network disturbances.

bq. With the help of mesh networks, New York can become a living, organic city, whose lifeblood is the packets of information that flows freely from point to point, person to person, bouncing around automatically finding its way to and from the internet.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/nyregion/25radio.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1169788736-3XGJTbefig6OwaqKelCOPg
[2]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/06/22/why-mesh-based-wireless-networks-are-ideal-for-new-york/
[3]http://www.saschameinrath.com/2007jan25municipal_wireless_idiots_aka_nycs_public_safety_boondoggle

Filed under: Mesh, New York City, News

December 27, 2006 • 11:29 am 0

NYCwireless 2006: A Year in Review

Wow! What a year 2006 has been. Wireless networks are growing at an enormous rate, and municipal and community wireless networks have had a breakout year. NYCwireless was no exception.

This year we accomplished many things. Most notably, we outpaced NYC’s Parks Department in building free, public Wi-Fi networks in city parks. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tonight I’m giving a presentation at our monthly NYCwireless meeting about all of the things that we’ve accomplished over the year, and also some of the things that happened around us in the wireless world.

We’ve got a great 2007 planned, and it promises to be an even bigger year for NYCwireless.

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/149/335212304_ca4bf54d77.jpg!

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/136/335212334_385a0bc98f.jpg!

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!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/128/335212557_4b7d2cd5f3.jpg!

Filed under: Community Wireless, New York City, NYCwireless

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