Features
Wifi Everywhere
Your Guide to a wirelessly connected world.
By Kirk Linsky
Scenario
1: You bring
your notebook home from work and turn it on to browse the web.
If your home wireless LAN works as it should and your PC is properly
configured, chances are that you won't have to do a thing. The
computer will simply load the webpage you requested. It remembered
your settings and what wireless network you want to connect to
at home. However, sometimes it gets confused and you find yourself
confronted with a whole list of access points to choose from.
Those are most likely your neighbors, and their wireless LANs
are likely not secure. You could simply use them for your browsing.
WiFi is everywhere. In fact, over a million US households now
use it. If you use more than one computer in your home, WiFi is
an inexpensive, simple way to share a fast internet connection
and to network all of your computers. We can't think of a single
reason not to do it.
Scenario
2: You go
to a conference and bring your laptop or PDA along to take notes.
If it is a technical conference, chances are you'll be informed
that a wireless LAN has been set up just for the benefit of conference
attendees. Either it's open and you can simply log on, or you'll
be given login information. This way you can peruse conference
information such as schedules, notes, changes. Sometimes whole
presentations are there for you to download. Or you can vote on
topics presented. And, of course, you can get your email during
breaks. WiFi is everywhere, so don't forget your laptop. You wouldn't
want to scribble notes on paper when you could simply download
and copy conference materials. And if yours is an older one that
doesn't have a built-in wireless connection, conference organizers
often loan or rent WiFi cards.
Scenario
3: You plan
a trip to San Francisco and need internet access not only in your
hotel, but also during the day. You check Intel's Hotspot Finder
(http://intel.jiwire.com) and find that San Francisco has over
600 listed hotspots. You know you'll be hanging out at Pier 39,
so you enter San Francisco, California, Pier 39 and check for
hotspots within a one mile radius. The system returns over 120
hotspots. However, most seem to cost money to use. You backtrack
and click on ãfreeä to get a list of hotspots that do not require
a subscription. Now we're down to nine, but none is closer than
about half a mile. Since you don't want to trek up to Haight-Asbury,
you narrow the search once again, to 0.2 miles from the Pier,
free or pay. That returns 18 locations, three of which are in
Pier 45, all within the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society.
Pick from iPass, Pronto, and Deep Blue Wireless. No info on the
first two. Deep Blue Wireless offers one day passes for US$8.95.
That requires some research. Let's try the free ones again, within
0.5 miles of Pier 39. Just one comes up, the DNA Lounge at 375
Eleventh Street. It's free, but what exactly is the DNA Lounge?
Do you have to go in? Or can you just hang outside and mooch bandwidth?
WiFi is everywhere, but it sure can be confusing to find the right
place. Spend a bit of time familiarizing yourself with all the
different offerings.
Scenario
4: You're
in a reasonably classy hotel that has high speed internet access.
Most of the time such access is via wire, but sometimes it is
wireless. You try to log on, but no luck. You call the front desk
which sends you to housekeeping who sends you to engineering who
has never heard of wireless because that was put in by this company
from Montgomery, Alabama, and please call this number. Unfortunately,
all you get is an answering service voice with a nice southern
accent. WiFi is everywhere, but they don't always know how it
works, so have a contingency plan ready.
Scenario
5: You're
in another reasonably classy hotel that, according to its Guest
Directory, has high speed internet access. You're searching for
the usual cables or connection information. Nothing. So you crank
up your notebook and, low and behold, the Windows Connection Manager
shows the presence of a wireless network. You try to connect to
it and it works. A ãShowcase Business Centersä screen comes up
and inquires if you already have an account. I don't. No problem.
For US$9.95 I can sign up for 24 hours. I create an account and
use my credit card to pay for it. Instant access, and even email
works. Apparently the hotel outsourced internet access and it
works great. Fortunately, you'll be encountering this painless
way of getting WiFi access more and more often!
Scenario
6: You're
a relatively seasoned WiFi user and you decide to sign up with
one of the HotSpot provides. You research things and decide to
get an account with Boingo which claims many thousands of locations.
Problem is that Boingo isn't everywhere. Sometimes a HotSpot uses
Boingo and sometimes it doesn't. And when they don't, you're out
of luck. What's the solution? Do more research until you find
a provider that covers all the places you go to? Hope that those
guys get their act in gear and provide HotSpot roaming? I mean,
roaming works with cellphones, so why not with HotSpots? WiFi
is everywhere, but you need to sign up with the right company.
Sadly, in many respects WiFi is where cell phones were a decade
ago, with plenty of incompatibilities, a lack of coverage in some
areas, and a puzzling reluctance by WiFi HotSpot providers to
cooperate with one another.
Scenario
7: 
You
pull out of your driveway and see a strange car parked on your
quiet suburban street.A
guy is sitting in it, apparently typing on his laptop. You get
back an hour later and the guy is still there. You note an odd
looking antenna on his roof. Chances are he's a ãwar driver,ä
someone who's driving around hunting and recording the location
of wireless networks. The term supposedly was coined in reference
tothe
1983 move ãWar Gamesä where Matthew Broderick's character was
ãwar dialing,ä i.e. automatically calling thousands of phone numbers
to find one with a modem attached to it. Not all war drivers are
bad people. For some it's just a sport and they won't abuse your
network. They use a terrific piece of free software called NetStumbler.
You can download it at netstumbler.com. WiFi is everywhere, and
hunting for it is becoming a sport. Nonetheless, this sort ofãsportä
is yet another reason why you should enable security on your WiFi
setup, even if it's only WEP.
Which
802 should I get? No, it didn't
start with 802.11a, and 802.11b isn't better than 802.11a. 802.11b
just so happened to be the WiFi standard that caught on. These
days, 802.11b equipment is dirt cheap because it is slower than
some of the newer and faster standards. 802.11a is much faster,
but it isn't compatible with 802.11b equipment. 802.11a has one
big advantage: It uses the 5-GHz spectrum where there is none
of the interference from cordless phones and other household gizmos
that occasionally bedevils 802.11b connections. 802.11g is faster
and uses the same 2.4 GHz frequency as 802.11b. It suffers from
interference like 802.11b, but its compatibility with existing
equipment means that the 802.11g standard is winning. There are
some (rather expensive) products that offer all three standards,
and thus the best of all worlds. Such products can be configured
so that they switch to the interference-free 802.11a protocol
for certain operations where speed matters, such as transferring
large files between certain devices, while using 802.11b or g
for less demanding chores. Our advice: go with 802.11g. It is
fast and inexpensive.
WiFi
Security: Until
recently almost no one used the wireless security feature built
into every router. That's in part because the sole available measure,
WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) is a bit cumbersome to use with
its need to enter a passkey every time you sign on, and in part
because the word of weaknesses in the WEP encoding system got
around. Why use something that could be cracked anyway? Fact is
that having some security is far better than having none. Chances
that a hacker targets your house are rather remote but wouldn't
you rather have a lock, any lock, on your door than having no
protection at all? The WEP problems have been addressed with yet
another acronym, WPA, which stands for Wi-Fi Protected Access.
WPA includes authentication and encryption, and an even more secure
system named WPA2 is already on the horizon.
Wireless
hotspot providers: If
you travel a lot, or even if you just like to be connected (almost)
wherever you go, you should probably look into signing up with
one of the major HotSpot providers. Here are some that Handheld
Computing recommends:
Boingo
(www.boingo.com) The Boingo Wi-Fi service has over 6000 Hot Spot
locations under contract and over 3300 live in 18 countries, over
700 cities and almost all US states. The Boingo Wi-Fi network
includes full or partial coverage in many US airports, service
in the lobbies of hundreds of major hotels such as the Four Seasons,
Hilton, Marriott, Wyndham, and coverage at hundreds of cafes,
coffee shops and free networks. Boingo service usually costs $39.95
a month, but special offers are as low as $21.95 per month. No
contract is required.
T-Mobile
HotSpot (www.-t-mobile.com) T-Mobile HotSpot offers thousands
of locations nationwide in places like Starbucks, Borders, Kinko's,
airports, and many airline clubs. T-Mobile has almost 5000 locations.
Unlimited national use costs $29.99 per month if you sign up for
a year. Month to month it's $39.99. T-Mobile also has pay-as-you-go
for ten cents per minute with a 60 minute minimum user session
per login and a $9.99 DayPass.
iPass
(www.ipass.com) IPass is a virtual network operator aimed at providing
access to mobile enterprise users. It claims about 20,000 Internet
access points in 24 countries. iPass also weaves together hundreds
of access providers in over 150 countries into a single scalable
virtual network that provides end-to-end security, centrally managed
policy enforcement and a nice user interface.
Wayport
(www.wayport.net) Wayport offers both Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet
in more than 600 hotels and a dozen major airports to help travelers
stay connected and productive. Prices vary for individual connections,
depending on location and other factors, but typically a connection
gives you 24 hours of connectivity for $9.95 in a hotel guestroom
or common area (such as a lobby), and $7.95 in an airport. Wayport
offers several Membership Plans, which save you money by giving
you unlimited connectivity for one monthly charge, as well as
Prepaid Connection Cards.
GRIC
(www.gric.com) GRIC's global TierOne Network includes more than
40,000 wired and wireless access points in approximately 150 countries.
This includes approximately 10,000 ãmobile broadbandä access points
- Wi-Fi and hotel Ethernet, as well as thousands of fixed broadband
access points. GRIC offers virtually every commercially available
access type including cable, DSL, Wi-Fi, ISDN, PHS, dial-up, and
more, for the ultimate in convenience and flexibility.
AT&T
Wireless WiFi (www.attwireless.com) AT&T Wireless WiFi service
is available at many hotels and airports across the US. AT&T has
various packages geared towards travelers. For example, ã5 Connectä
gives you five 24-hour sessions over a period of 180 days. ã10
Connectä offers ten.
Verizon
Wireless (www.verizon.net) Verizon tried to give away hotspot
access to DSL customers in the NYC area, but seems to be scaling
back the effort. Verizon Wi-Fi is available at multiple locations
in the New York City area with the majority of the Verizon HotSpots
in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Verizon Wi-Fi service is not available
from other hotspots outside the Verizon HotSpot network. Generally,
each Verizon Wi-Fi HotSpot covers a 600-foot diameter area around
the access point.
Surf
and Sip (www.surfandsip.com)
Surf and Sip is another company offering affordable high-speed
mobile internet access all over the planet. There are monthly
subscriptions ($20 per month with an annual contract, $30 per
month without commitment) or a number of pay-as-you-go plans that
start as low as $5 per day. All plans provide unlimited access
at any Surf and Sip location with no limits on connections or
data transfer. In Europe, Trustive
(www.trustive.com) claims to have over 1,600 hotspots.
Hotspot lists: intel.jiwire.com,
www.wififreespot.com, www.hotspot-locations.com,
www.wi-fizone.org, www.hotspotlist.com, www.wifinder.com,
locations.hotspot.t-mobile.com
Hotspot
roaming = hot topic: One
major problem with hotspots is that hotspot operators compete
with one another, each trying to sign up as many customers as
possible. There is little cooperation between them, which means
that you're out of luck if you can't locate a hotspot that uses
your provider. Unlike cellphones which have used the roaming concept
almost since Day One, roaming agreements are almost non-existent
among hotspot providers. In fairness, such arrangement aren't
simple (ironing out of technical issues, a way to handle billing,
etc.). The good news is that some hotspot roaming arrangements
are starting to appear. Wayport has deals with most of the network
operators. Boingo signed a deal with MCI. T-Mobile has one with
iPass. Sprint has arrangements with WayPort, Cometa Networks,
and Airpath Wireless. AT&T Wireless and Sprint signed what they
claimed was the first agreement between actual carriers. It only
covers hotspots in airports, but could be the beginning of better
cooperation.
Home
