Leave the Wires Behind
From Bryant Park to the East Village, Free Wireless Internet Access Is on The Rise

[This story appeared in The New York Sun, Sept. 10, 2002]


By SAM WILLIAMS

Tom Sjogren has seen the future of the Internet, and it starts somewhere between a fish market and a liquor store.

"I think it was around Avenue B and 14th," he says.

Mr. Sjogren is talking about free Internet access, and on a recent day on the Lower East Side, he stumbled upon the mother lode. He was participating in a scavenger hunt designed to dramatize the growing number of wireless Internet "hotspots" throughout the city, and within seconds of reaching the corner, the "sniffer" software program on his laptop showed open nodes, free wireless Internet connections with no security barriers, in almost every direction. Eager to record the discovery, Mr. Sjogren and his teammates hooked into the Internet via a nearby wireless network and uploaded a quick set of digital photographs.

"It was exciting," says Mr. Sjogren. "Until then, I didn't think it was possible to get on the Internet that way."

Mr. Sjogren isn't the only person revising his opinions on the wireless Internet. Since the beginning of the year, wireless fidelity, or WiFi, a communication standard that takes advantage of unlicensed portions of the radio spectrum, has been catapulting in popularity. Major companies such as IBM, Intel, and even Starbucks are rushing to meet rising consumer demand for hardware, software, and wireless service.

The numbers explain why. According to the Yankee group, a Boston-based technology analyst firm, the number of wireless Local Area Networks has doubled within the last year, rising to more than 1 million access points in the business realm alone. Toshiba, a manufacturer of WiFi transmission devices, puts the current number of publicly accessible hotspots at 1,200 and says it plans to help boost that number to 10,000 by the end of 2003.

Such growth rates are reminiscent of the last great exponential-growth technology phenomenon, the Internet itself. "We believe the industry is currently reaching a major inflection point for widespread adoption," writes Sam May, a senior technology analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.

If the current WiFi buildup mirrors the early growth of the Internet, or its most popular offshoot, World Wide Web, maybe that's because WiFi, like the Web before it, draws on the same fast, cheap and out-of-control design philosophy.

Launched in late 1999 under the code name 802.11b, WiFi takes advantage of the same unlicensed, unregulated portions of the radio spectrum currently used by microwave ovens and cordless phones. That means device manufacturers don't have to pay hefty spectrum licensing fees. That, plus the fact WiFi signals rarely extend more than 300 feet, all but insures a robust, heterogeneous marketplace in terms of service.

"It's almost a real estate play," observes Christian Gunning, president and founder of Boingo Wireless, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based WiFi startup. "If you get the rights to any given property, you own that property."

Boingo currently sells software to streamline the uplinking process on the consumer end, but the company's long-term goal is to build a seamless national WiFi network by partnering with hotels, airports, and other single-point providers.

Interestingly, Boingo's biggest competitor isn't AOL Time Warner or Verizon: it's Starbucks. Last month, the Seattle-based coffee retailer announced a partnership with T-Mobile Wireless that would put wireless LANs inside 1,200 of its U.S. stores by the end of 2002. With more than 120 stores in Manhattan alone, such a move could quickly propel Starbucks to the forefront of local service providers.

For adventurous early adopters like Mr. Sjogren, however, the current patchwork state of WiFi service is its own attraction. Following the recent "node-runner" game, Mr. Sjogren took a "war-chalking" class at Eyebeam, a Chelsea art space. Conceived by British WiFi enthusiast Matt Jones, "war-chalking" is a derivation of "war-dialing," the old 1980s-era hacker trick of dialing phone numbers at random in search of an open modem tone. The real inspiration, however, comes from the old hobo practice of using chalk symbols to guide future travelers on the road. Instead of pointing out where to find free food and lodging, war-chalking symbols point out the local node, its status, and the available bandwidth.

"After class, we went around chalking up the sidewalk," Mr. Sjogren recalls.. "We found two open nodes and two closed nodes within the first 10 blocks."

You don't necessarily have to search for free WiFi access, though. In Bryant Park, Tompkins Square Park and several other public spaces throughout Manhattan, users can access the Internet simply by opening up a laptop and using built-in software. NYCwireless, a local non-profit WiFi users group, has launched an effort to establish free wireless Internet service citywide. It has teamed up with the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation in the Midtown park to create three 11 Mb wireless access points running atop a 1.5 Mb T-1 line.

"The speed gets a little slow around 6 p.m. when everybody gets off work," says Adan, 33, a teacher from Williamsburg who was working on his iBook in Bryant Park on a recent sunny afternoon. "Any other time of the day, it's fine."

If Anthony Townsend has his way, games like "war-chalking" and "war-driving" will soon become a thing of the past, at least in New York City. A professor of urban planning at NYU, Townsend helped launch NYCwireless to take advantage of the city's dense construction. "I wanted to make sure we got to these places before the for-profit providers did."

That might be a tall order for the moment, but wireless users are already taking advantage of fellow New Yorkers' generosity. Many of the so-called open nodes springing up around the city are the result of private users attaching wireless LANs atop existing broadband Internet connections and letting neighbors log on, or "piggyback" for free. Such generosity could be short-lived, however, as security and bandwidth concerns prompt system administrators to crack down on the practice. In July Time Warner Cable of New York City attracted attention when it sent letters to a dozen local subscribers warning against redistribution of service.

"We weanted to educate customers on the dangers of opening their service to random users," says a spokesperson for Time Warner Cable of New York City, Suzanne Giuliani. "We also wanted to remind them that Roadrunner is a proprietary service for their individual use only." One of the group's primary goals, he says, is to blanket the city with free wireless coverage. "Ideally," he says. "We'd like every street, every park, every subway station, every train station to have a free wireless network in it."

Even if Internet service providers do crack down, Mr. Townsend believes the path of Internet usage bends towards zero cost. The limitations of the WiFi signal make it possible for retailers and building managers to charge for Internet access in some places, but as the number of free hotspots grow ‹ NYCwireless currently reports more than 70 between Bryant Park and Bowling Green ‹ users will come to expect the same unrestricted Internet surfing experience they get in the home or office.

"This is phase two," says Mr. Townsend. "Phase one was building out the network, connecting city to city and person to person. Phase two is building the last mile so you can take the network to interesting places."

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SIDEBAR: "How to Surf For Free"

If you want to let others piggyback on your wireless service, first read your service agreement. Some Internet service providers, most notably Time Warner Cable of NYC, do not allow it.

HARDWARE:

If you're wondering why WiFi is suddenly attracting so much attention, it's because the hardware prices have finally fallen into the casual hobbyist range. It now costs less than $300 to set up a wireless LAN atop your existing Internet service, and the WiFi card that cost $100 last year now runs about $50. If you want to connect via a PC, PC-compatible laptop or palmtop device, you'll need to buy a card (which is easy to install). Orinoco, Compaq, Toshiba and Dell are the biggest sellers. Apple users, for once, are ahead of the curve. The latest iBooks and iMacs come with built-in WiFi cards.

SOFTWARE:

A popular node-sniffing program is Net Stumbler [www.netstumbler.com], but to help seed the marketplace, companies such as Joltage and Boingo are now giving away software. Boingo's software runs only on Windows systems. Joltage, meanwhile, supports both Windows and Linux systems. Again, users of the latest Apple devices can rely on pre-installed AirPort software.

LOCATIONS:

Nodedb.com currently lists more than 140 active wireless hotspots in the New York Metropolitan area (www.nodedb.com//unitedstates/ny/newyork). The most reliable, though, are in Manhattan, where NYCwireless (www.nycwireless.net) has been working with park managers to set up public wireless LANs. Bryant Park, Tompkins Square Park, and Bowling Green all currently offer wireless Internet service. Other places with intermittent coverage include Avenue B from 14th Street to Tompkins Square Park, First Street in Hoboken, and Eighth Avenue between 7th and 11th Streets in Park Slope.

SECURITY:

Security is the most important, and the most often overlooked, element of WiFi use. A large number of open nodes are the result of poor security on the part of wireless LAN managers. Look for companies to tighten those nodes up within the next year. In the meantime, wireless Internet users should be ultra-diligent when surfing the Internet outside the home. Email encryption and Web browser running the Secure Sockets Layer protocol are an absolute must. "If you're connecting to the Internet wirelessly without SSL, you're essentially broadcasting your password and data to the world," warns Mr. Townsend.

Copyright © 2002 The New York Sun.