[Cu-wireless] NYTimes Op-Ed on Wi-Fi:

[Sascha Meinrath]

Here's a great op-ed published today in the NYTimes:

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OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Free Lane on the Information Highway
By DALTON CONLEY

Published: March 19, 2004

The WiFi revolution is here. With the technology known as wireless
fidelity, laptop users can get onto the Internet and download e-mail,
photos and other electronic files from places once well off the
information superhighway . parks, truck stops and cafes, to name a few.

That's a wonderful thing, but what's better is that WiFi holds the promise
of bridging America's much discussed digital divide . if we make it
ubiquitous and free to use, like the public library system. After all,
just as roads and bridges were among the most important public investments
in the industrial period, wireless access to the Internet is arguably the
most crucial public investment of the information age.

For now, though, wireless Internet access is a hodgepodge. In most cases,
a home computer user buys a wireless router (which costs less than $100)
that links to an Internet connection (which can cost several hundred
dollars a year). The router then broadcasts a signal, which typically
covers 300 feet to 1,600 feet, that allows all computers within that range
to tap into the Internet. Some businesses, like coffee shops, have WiFi on
their premises to lure customers. Some institutions also provide WiFi to
the public. In Bryant Park, next to the New York Public Library on 42nd
Street, laptop users can sit at one of the public tables on a glorious
afternoon and read their e-mail while sipping a latte, thanks to the
Bryant Park Restoration Corporation. Similarly, Columbia University offers
free wireless access on its campus.

But these are the exceptions; most of the wireless access points, or
nodes, in Manhattan are provided, perhaps inadvertently, by individuals.
I, for instance, don't "lock" my signal with a secret access code; I have
an "open node," and thus anyone within range is free to go on the Net
through me. Since I pay for Internet service, I don't feel particularly
guilty when I'm away from home and make use of someone else's portal to
the Web. What's more, with WiFi technology, allowing other users to look
at their e-mail through my hub isn't going to slow me down.

Not surprisingly, this type of thinking alarms Internet service providers,
which maintain that users can't share their service. And there is
certainly opportunity for abuse, as when apartment buildings charge
residents a fee to log onto the Net using the building's WiFi hubs.
Clearly, reselling a service under false pretenses, when the costs are
borne by a different company that reaps no commission, is . and should
remain . illegal.

But what about when individual users choose to make their WiFi available
to the public at no charge? Are they merely exercising their right to use
their service as they see fit . analogous to inviting a few friends over
to watch a video you rented? That's the argument being made by
participants in a relatively unheralded movement among America's techies
promoting free wireless access.

This movement has gained momentum in the past year, so I recently took a
walk with my laptop around residential neighborhoods in Manhattan with the
hope of seeing how WiFi access has changed since Public Internet
Project.org conducted a census of the island in 2002. Back then, it found
that about 30 percent of some 13,000 access nodes were locked. On my walk,
I found that the proportion of locked nodes had increased, to just under
half. I also found what the 2002 census did: as much as I wanted to
stereotype neighborhoods as "selfish" or "open," it seemed to be pretty
random which areas had a higher proportion of open nodes. The best
predictor of node density appears to be . surprise, surprise . the
neighborhood's income level. For example, Harlem is about the only area
left in Manhattan with significant dead space . an obvious example of the
digital divide.

But nodes are continuing to spread throughout the city and the country. On
Nodeb.com, people list their open nodes, essentially inviting strangers to
join a worldwide community of users. This site has more than 11,000
registered access points in the United States. Even if service providers
can make it more difficult for users to share Internet access, techies
will eventually find a way around them.

There is a market failure here: quasi-monopoly companies provide a service
and try to prevent users from realizing returns to scale (that is, using
one node for multiple laptops). The result is inefficiency (more hubs than
we need, not distributed for maximum coverage) and inequality (between the
free riders and those who pay for Internet service).

The public interest would be better served by the government stepping in
and providing a public good . an open wireless network . while
compensating the private companies that laid the wired part of the system
for their one-time investment. To quote Benjamin Franklin, the founder of
the first lending library in North America back in 1731: "If you would
persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect." How about
both?

Dalton Conley, the director of New York University's Center for Advanced
Social Science Research, is the author of "The Pecking Order: Which
Siblings Succeed and Why."

-- 
Sascha Meinrath
Project Manager & President      *      Project Manager
Acorn Active Media Foundation   ***     Eggplant Active Media
www.acornactivemedia.com         *      www.eggplantmedia.com