T-Mobile Offers Relief for Hurricane Victims 299
lilrowdy18 writes "Eweek reports that T-Mobile is offering free Wi-Fi to areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. This relief will be free until Sept 2 and an evaluation will be done to see if it will continue after that. The hot spots are only available to residents of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi and does not include phone service. The article also includes a link to a map of T-Mobile hotspots. At least we can use some form of communication to get in touch with loved ones."
Location list and personal note... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I saw this story ahead of time (and t-mobile's site was already snail slow) but I got to the page for Mississippi. My SMS to him:
t-mobile is offering free wifi to hurricane victims: Flowood (Borders),
Kinkos (Hattiesburg & Jackson), and Starbucks (Ridgeland & Southaven)
Now, after I sent it, I thought about it. In the entire state of MS they have *5* wifi hotspots? Are these locations operational? Will they offer some electric draw for those that need it?
I really think it's great that t-mobile is offering this to those people affected by the storm but so few locations and many w/o power? What good can it really do? Skype, where are you?
Most of these people would probably prefer telephone service over Internet access. Luckily this guy was able to e-mail via SMS and get in touch w/those that care about him.
I'm just glad that one of the people I know from the area is ok and I wish all those affected by the storm the best of luck for a speedy and safe recovery.
I have put up a mirror of locations [lazylightning.org] in text format. Hopefully this will be easier to disseminate.
Ham radio (Score:3, Interesting)
Great.. VOIP (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a surefire prescription for healing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only 3 days?? (Score:5, Interesting)
One word: Spammers. Or, more generally, idiots who *will* abuse the system. It's not like a food line where you can pretty easily evenly distribute scarce resources and prevent people from poisoning the stew.
After three days they'll have a pretty good idea of patterns of usage and optimize the service to weed out the abusers. They will also likely tweak the caches so that most frequently used resources will be readily available without tying up the backbones so much.
Chances are good it was sold to higher management as a good publicity stunt, but managment is afraid that it'll either become very costly, or they'll destroy the service for users who actually pay for it. So the 3-day completely free is a good compromise. They can gauge complaints and usage, and then make a longer term decision.
-Adam
Useful corporate donations pouring in... (Score:4, Interesting)
BP: $1m cash + $/$ match of employee donations
Capital One: $1m cash
Anheuser-Busch: $250K cash + 875K cans of water
Eli Lilly: $1m cash + $/$ match of employee donations + $1m in insulin
Kellogg: $500k cash and food
Home Depot: $1.5m cash
Wal-Mart: $1m cash
Exxon Mobil: $2m cash
Amerada Hess: $1m cash + $/$ match of employee donations
Chevron: $5m cash
JP Morgan Chase: $1m cash + $/$ match of employee donations
DuPont: $1m cash
GM: $400k cash + vehicles
Culligan: 5 semi trailers of water
CVS: $250K cash + $254K in food and water
Re:Useful corporate donations pouring in... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only 3 days?? (Score:4, Interesting)
I love it. A bunch of true pricks get on slashdot and bitch about a company that is offering assistance, and anyone that calls them on it is called a prick. This thread just gets funnier and funnier the more I think about it.
Wow, he donated what he could afford. So did I.
Using his and your logic, let me ask, why didn't he max out his credit card to help even more? Take vacation from work and fly to LA to help? Drive to the corner hospital and donate blood? Why didn't his employer donate more money?
The point is, T-Mobile is doing something. Why bitch about it?
As if a company wouldn't go for cheap PR. Goodness, no, not those innocent corporate angels.
This is beside the point entirely. Every company and person that publicly contributes money to an effort knows they will get good PR in return. So what? Does that diminish the net effect of their help?
Only on Slashdot, luckily, where the real world is far, far away.
Re:Location list and personal note... (Score:4, Interesting)
Should I bother posting facts to refute that false assumption, or would it be a waste of time....
Do you truly believe that statement and you are just uninformed, and as such would be ammenable to facts to the contrary? Or is it just a knee jerk reaction from someone who has never served?
The Guard is ready to serve in any domestic emergency, contrary to the propaganda you hear from Al Franken....
Re:This is what t-mobile has (Score:3, Interesting)