Hot hot hot…

Like a giddy boy with a new toy, I went out on the streets of Manhattan today to play with my Linksys 802.11b CompactFlash card and my HP iPAQ h2210. My goal? To check out what it’s like to use the various Wi-Fi HotSpots around New York City and see how easy (or hard) it is to get online while walking about. If you haven’t heard – Wi-Fi HotSpots are the IN thing these days with many businesses introducing HotSpots in their stores and free access points popping up all around major metropolitan areas. Even the likes of Intel is pushing Wi-Fi as the next big thing with their “Unwire” advertising and their Centrino Mobile Technology. With my iPAQ in hand, I walked around midtown manhattan to see just how hot Wi-Fi was in this current day and age.

Looking for an access point…

If you wander the streets of New York City with a 802.11b/g enabled device, you’re going to find plenty of access points all over. In fact, many of these access points are not meant for the casual user but the owners probably failed to secure it properly. Hey if you can get onto the net via these access points – cool but don’t stay on ok? It’s not too cool to be using someone else’s bandwidth without that person knowing it.

What I was looking for were legitimate access points in New York City and the best place to start is the free stuff pinpointed at http://www.nycwireless.net/ (Thanks slau for showing me this site!) NYCWireless is an organization whose sole purpose is to promote open wireless hotspots in public spaces throughout the New York region. These include places like parks, coffee shops, and building lobbies. You can find the current map of available nodes here.

It’s easy to set up your device to look for a NYCWireless hotspot. Just look for “www.nycwireless.net” SSIDs. There’s no need for an encryption key of any sort. For more information on how to set up your device – check out this page here. If you’re feeling generous and you want to add to this movement, then go to this page to see what you need to do to make your Wi-Fi HotSpot available to the public.

I checked out the viability of this project by heading over to Bryant Park this evening and my iPAQ immediately found a slew of access points. With a few short clicks, I was up and running on the internet and sending IM messages to friends of mine. Very cool!! (though unfortunately it was raining out, so I didn’t hang around the park for too long).

However, without this map, it’s not easy finding public hotspots around the city. Sure you can walk about with a laptop or PDA searching for them but that will surely drain your battery in no time. You might be better off printing a list of available Wi-Fi free hotspots from the website before heading out.

If you want to view more available nodes outside of New York (aw heck – and around the world) – check out: http://www.nodedb.com/ Another good place to look is: http://www.hotspotlist.com/ which provides a list of hotspots around the country. And finally - check out the Wi-Fi Zone.

But sometimes you have to pay…

Ok so it’s nice that there are all these free access points around the city but let’s be real – not everything in life is free and sometimes you have to pay for what you want. In the world of Wi-Fi HotSpots, there’s nothing like using the T-Mobile Wi-Fi service in a Starbucks near you. Getting onto the service from a Starbucks coffee shop is a simple case of using your wireless device and having a credit card handy.

Your first attempt at accessing the wireless network in a Starbucks will bring up a homepage asking you to log in with your T-Mobile account or buy into their service. Their service can be rather hefty in price if you go for a month to month plan ($39.99 a month). If you know you’ll use their service quite a bit then choose the year plan which comes out to $29.99 a month. You can go for a day pass at $9.99 a day too. Those looking for an a la carte type of service will find a pay as you go price of 10 cents a minute for a minimum of 60 minutes at any login point in time. You can find more information here:
https://accounts.hotspot.t-mobile.com/signup.jsp

Once you sign up and create a login and password, all you need to do is sign in via the browser and you’ll be authenticated on their wireless network. I sat down with a friend of mine and mocha frap and was surfing the wonderful world of the web on my PDA (OK I really need a Tablet PC for this!)

All told the Starbucks experience is rather compelling IF you have the time and mobility (and desire for coffee) to use it that much. Since I’m currently a mobile worker, I find this a great solution to gain internet access while having a cup of Joe. However this isn’t for everyone and with that in mind, you may find other services more along your alley.

Verizon is offering Wi-Fi HotSpot locations around the city for free to people who are already existing DSL customers. You can find more information on this service at the Verizon website.

I personally think this is a great business idea for Verizon because it naturally draws more DSL business to them. It’s great for the consumer who now has one single account providing broadband services at home as well as on the go.

I’ll have a Big Mac and Fries and oh yeah – a HotSpot please..

And finally, my day ended at a local McDonalds in Times Square where I checked out their new Wi-Fi service offering from AT&T. You can now have a Big Mac and Fries while surfing the internet – how cool is that? I’m not sure how many people will be willing to just park their behinds in a McDonalds seat but hey – anything to drive customers to the Golden Arches eh? For the month of August, McDonalds is offering the service for free and then for $2.99 a day afterwards. You can find more information on McDonalds' website and a list of locations here.

Getting on the internet through a McD’s was just a matter of a few clicks on a web page (agreeing to service agreements etc). Don’t get hooked onto the hotspots at McDonalds for too long – you may end up gaining weight while surfing!

Not a bad beginning

So my first day roaming with my Wi-Fi enabled PDA wasn’t a bad start. There is one clear thing that I did learn from all of this. Surfing the net on a small iPAQ screen just doesn’t cut it. You need a notebook if not a Tablet PC to get things done! However, outside of this, getting onto the internet via a Wi-Fi HotSpot wasn’t too hard IF you knew where to look (and how to configure your system). The NYCWireless is a good place to start for anyone not willing to shell out dollars for service. If you are always near a Starbucks and have the money to spend, then consider using a T-Mobile account – it’s easy to set up and getting on the net is as easy as logging into a webpage. These are all great first steps to providing broad internet access to many citizens. It’s still a service for the wealthy – even if the wireless is free – since you still need a Wi-Fi enabled device to get onto the net. However as devices continue to fall in price, hopefully more and more people will utilize Wi-Fi HotSpots. Who knows – maybe this really is the next killer application in many ways? It’s a good beginning. As for me – I’ll be dropping by Starbucks more often now.

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