WiFi Free-For-All

my_LART writes "Information Week reports that WiFi access is becoming a free commodity. Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) has recently dropped its pay-per-use model and has installed free access to the WLAN in the food court and will be expanding access to the gates. On a similar note, Choice Hotels International is planning a WLAN rollout at its 370 Comfort Suites and 140 Clarion properties by the end of May. Choice Hotels International plans on expanding the rollout to two more of the company's brands by the end of the year. While this is great for us Road Warriors, how can this make financial sense? Choice Hotels can certainly markup the cost of the rooms by a few dollars per night, but how is PIT planning on reclaiming the costs? Regardless, lets hope other airports and hotel chains follow suit."

How will they pay for this?

[detritus`]

Easy, three little words, Airport Improvement Fee... Part of the way your $50 flight ends up costing $100+

Re:How will they pay for this?

[miratim]

Actually, most places that started charging for WiFi access eventually realize that the cost of supporting the paying customer is a lot more than just providing the pipe for free. When it's free, they don't have to have someone to fix it when it breaks or someone doesn't know how to connect. So they end up with very minimal overhead, but still retain the increased business of having code monkeys like me spend hours at the place buying drinks and swearing under our breaths.

Re:How will they pay for this?

[Short Circuit]

What's the security gaurd's opinion when someone who hasn't shaved in two weeks is always hanging out at the airport?

Or do I just wear a business suit?

Re:How will they pay for this?

[Bi()hazard]

That's right. But not the whole story-if you've been paying attention to PIT there's a lot going on.

US Air has a huge hub there, but the airline also has a strong presence in Philadelphia. Not surprisingly, the airline never seems to have enough money, despite the fact that the government paid for expansions to the airport at the request of and according to recommendations made by US Air. Maybe they could cut costs by switching to a single hub in Philly? Could be...but whether that's a good idea or not it's a great threat to extort concessions from the Pittsburgh Airport.

Meanwhile, anyone who flies through PIT will see banners everywhere celebrating "Yesterday's Airport of Tomorrow". Um, yeah...I suppose that makes it the airport of today...they put up plaques explaining the glorious and futuristic history of the airport, and how traveller friendly it is. Citizens of the Twenty First Century, fly PIT, fly the Future!

Both of these factors are major motivations for free wireless. Travellers will be more likely to spend time in the airport, they bolster their high tech futuristic image, US Air gets free access for its employees (working ones can really use it, ones on breaks really love it) and the airport gets to justify those Airport Improvement Fees and tell taxpayers how they're being innovative and luring business. (They just love justifying higher fees in a city where there's such a serious budget problem some politicians have actually suggested eliminating bus service on Sundays, the bastard whores)

Free wireless internet has something to offer for all parties involved, and the days of pay-as-you-go wireless are numbered everywhere. Once the free stuff becomes more affordable to provide and more common, users will come to expect it. They'll simply refuse to pay fees for wireless, and organizations that keep trying to charge will be considered greedy and outdated. PIT certainly doesn't want that, they want to be the leaders into the glorious pro-consumer (and pro-business at the same time!) future.

Does anyone think it's really going to be that many years before hotels that currently provide broadband for $10/night give it away for free? The up front installation may be expensive, but once it's paid for itself the service is really cheap.

Getting off topic, has anybody ever flown with a pocket flashlight that has the batteries side by side, rather than in a long column? Those things really seem to piss of security screeners. Every time I leave one in my pocket or bag, they pull me aside and rape me or something. Anybody have any idea why? Does it look like a secret micro gun a spy might carry? Do bomb manufacturers always put their batteries side by side? Or is it just an excuse and I'm too cute, cuddly, and rapable for security people to resist?

Re:How will they pay for this?

[The Cydonian]

Does anyone think it's really going to be that many years before hotels that currently provide broadband for $10/night give it away for free? The up front installation may be expensive, but once it's paid for itself the service is really cheap.

Already there in S.Korea. At least, in the three backpacker hostels I checked out. No Wi-Fi though; you had to access the net through their PC's.

Re:How will they pay for this?

[Hadlock]

it looks like a two-shot primitive gun. not terribly uncommon. they're usually packed to look like a keychain or wine bottle opener. two AA or AAA battery "slots", especially in a metal casing, make for a decent, close range gun. i'd just buy a mini-maglite and be done with it.

Re:How will they pay for this?

[SplendidIsolatn]

>>Meanwhile, anyone who flies through PIT will see banners everywhere celebrating "Yesterday's Airport of Tomorrow". Um, yeah...I suppose that makes it the airport of today...they put up plaques explaining the glorious and futuristic history of the airport, and how traveller friendly it is. Citizens of the Twenty First Century, fly PIT, fly the Future!

While I appreciate the fact that you pay attention to the banners there, you're a little off in terms of what they mean. Those banners refer to the OLD Pittsburgh International Airport (now since relegated to cargo planes), which, when it opened 50+ years ago, WAS The Airport of Tomorrow. As opposed to some other airports, Pittsburgh International IS pretty modern and with the times. Like many other airports, the biggest complaint there is the lack of a larger security area, which was originally designed NOT with post 9/11 security measures in mind. The banners for the new Pittsburgh International make note of how it used to be a farm.

BTW--here's your trivia du jour -- Pittsburgh International is the largest major airport in America not directly serviced by an Interstate -- They are trying to get Route 60 (and 22/30) designated as part of I-376 so they no longer have that distinction.

Same as the soap in the bathroom

[rcpitt]

It makes sense because the incremental cost of providing the service is probably lower than the cost of the soap (lots in my flight bag) and the capital is less than the cleaning budget for the toilets for a day or two

So you're saying ...

[pavon]

they are going to pay for it by not providing soap and not cleaning the toilets twice a month? :)

Re:So you're saying ...

[rcpitt]

RTFP - Read the Friendly Post - capital means one-time cost - that means they're only going to skip cleaning the toilets once for a couple of days in order to pay for the US$150 AP hardware

If we had to put up with dirty toilets for a couple of days a month, I'm not sure what would happ... wait... how would you know? I don't know about you, but I'm not in one place long enough to know if they've cleaned recently or not!!!

Same reason there's no ticket taker in elevators.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

It makes sense because the incremental cost of providing the service is probably lower than the cost of the soap (lots in my flight bag) and the capital is less than the cleaning budget for the toilets for a day or two.

It also makes sense because providing the internet feed is dirt cheap, while trying to meter it and collect fees is NOT.

It's called a "marginal service" - like the shaver outlet in the bathroom (without a meter and coin slot), providing lighting (rather than requiring you to bring your own flashlight), or the free elevators (without a ticket taker). It's MUCH easer and cheaper to include the cost of the service in the overhead cost of the environment (and the goods and services you buy there) than to try to bill for it specifically.

Closer to the shaver outlet than the elevator, by the way. Unmetered internet service is dirt cheap to provide. Installing and maintaining elevators is DARNED expensive.

Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Landing fees.

Hmmm

[gid13]

Could we just cover the globe and get it over with? :)

But by the time we finished ...

[pavon]

we'd have to start replacing it with 802.45 :)

WiFi access at airports

[MadHungarian1917]

From a traveller's point of view 'free' wireless access will influence the traveller's choice of airport so the airport authority will benefit indirectly by attracting more passengers.

Also - first post

Re:WiFi access at airports

[coryking]

(lady): "Gee, what do you think honey? Should we go to bumfuck, idaho or hawaii for our honeymoon?"

(MadHungarian): "I vote for idaho, i hear they have free WiFi access in the airport"

Yeah, way to win one with the ladies dude...

Re:WiFi access at airports

[LostCluster]

Actually, it will make a difference in terms of passengers who have a choice. US Airways rents more than half of the gates at PIT... so for flights that involve a non-major city, it's a safe bet that if you pick US Airways you're going to go through PIT, and if you pick Delta you'll hub at ATL.

For two otherwise equal situaitons, this could be the tiebreaker. In fact, somebody might be more inclined to pick US Airways because of this, and that might be worth the money to pay a few bucks extra for the ticket.

Re:WiFi access at airports

[zaxus]

However, in places like Chicago (Midway, O'Hare) or here in South Florida (Palm Beach Int'l, Ft, Lauderdale Int'l, Miami Int'l), people do have a choice of which airport to utilize. I for one would certainly give some weight to WiFI access, since we (USians) have to arrive at the airport so early to jump through security hoops. I'm often at my gate with an hour or 2 to kill. Be nice to have Slashdot^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H..er...work to help kill the time....

Re:WiFi access at airports

[StenD]

When I'm looking to travel, even when I'm looking at a particular airline, there's often a choice of routing for comparable price and travel time. When that happens, the quality of the connecting airports does play a role in my decision, and the availability of WiFi does factor into my opinion of the airport, as do other amenities.

Re:WiFi access at airports

[thogard]

Putting wifi in the airport works the same way as serving nasty food on a short flight. It means fewer irate passengers because they have something to do.

Re:WiFi access at airports

[daveo0331]

One airport per city doesn't necessarily mean no choice in airports. Pittsburgh is an example of this. Since US airways runs something like 80% of the flights out of PIT, they can set the fares high... which means a lot of people drive the 2 hours to Cleveland to save money. Free wifi (or moving walkways, parking shuttles, or anything else that makes the experience more pleasant) will give people one more reason to fly out of PIT and not Cleveland.

Not only cost, but what about security?

[tliet]

Normally, people that would do hacking, credit card fraud or just plain spamming would be traceable, not anymore so when half the internet is made out of freely accessible hotspots? Or would they block all interesting ports except port 80 and 443 to allow casual webbrowsing?

Re:Not only cost, but what about security?

[Anonymous Coward]

hacking - maybe it's time we make our systems secure and hackerproof
credit card fraud - maybe it's time we stop considering 16 digits to be enough to authorize a transaction
just plain spamming - maybe it's time we start bouncing un(cryptographically)signed mails

Strange rumblings

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this some strange sort of troll, with believable naivete?

hacking - maybe it's time we make our systems secure and hackerproof credit card fraud - maybe it's time we stop considering 16 digits to be enough to authorize a transaction just plain spamming - maybe it's time we start bouncing un(cryptographically)signed mails

Hacker-proof is just silly. Nothing is hacker proof. But even so, the issue here is that free wi-fi everywhere means hacking becomes much, much easier to do safely. You remember how they caught the Blaster worm guy because someone saw him launching it at the library? How are you going to catch someone who only has to be within 150 m of a base-station and could just hide in a toilet stall with his laptop?

More than 16 digits on a credit card? That's like requiring 45 digit passwords. It just makes people more likely to write the damn thing down, which actually LESSENS security. With a 16-digit credit card number, people often memorize it, and less often store it in a text-file on their computer for easy reference.

As for cryptographically secure e-mail... well, whatever. The e-mail system is so badly broken it's a wonder we still get service at all. Cryptography is just one of a dozen issues.

Re:Strange rumblings

[Pete (big-pete)]

With a 16-digit credit card number, people often memorize it, and less often store it in a text-file on their computer for easy reference.

Yeah - I wrote my 16-digit number on the back of the card, so it's easy to find...

-- Pete.

Re:Not only cost, but what about security?

[Draknor]

Hopefully, commoditized internet will encourage the adoption of better security policies & protocols. Not right away, of course, but I think eventually it'll happen.

But then again, I'm ever the optimist!

And really, the worst that could happen is the current internet gets over-legislated and some new form of networking gains a large underground following while the unwashed masses suffer their daily torment of spam, worms, pop-ups, and DRM.

Re:Not only cost, but what about security?

[ewhac]

I have to agree; this is a small disaster in the making.

This service will be used mostly by business travellers, who will more than likely be doing business-related activities, including pulling down email and shuttling documents back and forth. POP/IMAP passwords are transmitted in the clear, and can be trivially sniffed. Your file server credentials can also be fairly easily sniffed out, allowing someone else to connect as you and start pulling down documents.

Crypto needs to be standard in such environments, but it's clear that's not going to happen soon. WEP is worthless, and 802.1x isn't in wide deployment, which leaves VPN (kinda ugly and deployed ad hoc), SSH tunnels (better, but still unwieldy), and IPSec (even better, but not very common). So there's going to be a lot of sensitive data floating around in the clear.

If you're not using crypto, or not certain you're using crypto, change your passwords before and after you use a public 802.11 node.

Schwab

Re:Not only cost, but what about security?

[Esion Modnar]

change your passwords before and after you use a public 802.11 node.

Public node, public commode. Always practice good security and hygiene.

Unfortunately, good security is not as easy as flushing with your elbow and washing your hands. It's technical (uh, I mean the security part), and most people aren't.

I wonder what kind of legal fine print protects the owners of these hotspots from liability? Has anybody been sued yet for not protecting the customer enough from being hacked?

Re:Not only cost, but what about security?

[Bastian]

Too bad for the lay user, but I think from a legal standpoint it's fair to to say that people don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they broadcast things over radio frequencies. If I used a business's cordless phone to have a conversation in the bathroom and someone happened to intercept the signal, the business wouldn't be liable. I think the same situation applies to wireless networks.

Besides, you don't have any more reason to expect someone isn't grabbing your packets on an unencrypted wireless network than if you were on a copper wire network that is hubbed rather than switched. The only difference on a wireless network is that it could be the next-door neighbor - nobody has to physically walk in and plug a cable into your hub. This isn't much of a difference when you're sitting at a public place such as an airport or coffee shop.

My local trendy cafe...

[centralizati0n]

My local trendy cafe/art gallery, The Canvas (Lincoln and 9th in San Francisco, right on the corner) now has free wireless during business hours. You can walk in, and its full of people - most with a laptop, but they also have one important thing: the food they bought at the cafe. So, the Canvas can get 1.5 mbit DSL for $40 a month, and get at least 40 more people a day buying more food, probably at least amounting to the total cost of the DSL per month, every day.

Re:My local trendy cafe...

[horatio]

We have a couple of coffee shops here in the Columbus (OH) area that offer free WiFi. However, my roommate who worked at a non-WiFi'd coffeeshop in an upper class neighborhood told me that the upper management refused to put WiFi in, saying that they didn't want anyone sitting around the coffeeshop, but rather they wanted to move customers in and out of the store. The argument sounds logical if somewhat contrived.

How do you convince your local coffeeshop that putting in WiFi would be good for business?

Uses

[thebatlab]

Out of genuine curiosity, what are the uses of having wifi access at the gates? I can see in the food court to an extent where people might want to quickly browse or catch up on email while grabbing lunch before/between flights but are there really things that are that necessary we need to quickly get out on the net while at the gate?

Re:Uses

[rcpitt]

You've obviously never sat for hours at "the gate" waiting for the late plane that will carry you to your next destination. The gate is where we all hope there is coffee and entertainment - and if you have a laptop with IP connectivity you can at least fake the entertainment ;)

Re:Uses

[thebatlab]

True enough. I guess i'm a bit short-sighted today. It happens :) And no, i've never been much of a traveler. I've been on 2 planes, both for pleasure.

Re:Uses

[xoran99]

I've spent enough time waiting at gates to appreciate the utility of having wireless internet there. It's not that I need to get something out while at the gate, but that I have an hour or more (I like to get there early...) to get something productive done while I wait.

Re:Uses

[Cmdrx]

I've used a dial up line near the gate to sync my email so that I could keep working on the plane. Wireless access would simply make this easier. In addition, many Wireless systems I've used try to "force" the windows browser to a specific start page, which may be leveraged as an advertisement for shops that are local to the Access Point.

Hmmm.. new business advertising model? Setup free WIFI, but hijack the initial page to a custom advertisement for the business hosting the hotspot?

Re:Uses

[StenD]

You've apparently never travelled on business. There's times that you have to go straight from the airport to the customer site, and you're far more likely to have WiFi available at a hub airport than a spoke airport. As such, it can be quite useful to be able to connect to the corporate VPN and download email with updated status at the customer site in the 15 minutes available at the gate.

paid off already

[yuri82]

Maybe the paying customers already made up for the initial cost of installation, and now the remaining costs must be so low they can make it available for free.

depends on who owns the AP

[rcpitt]

Of course you're all using encryption and firewalling your laptops (via iptables running on Linux of course) so that the guys who run these open APs can't sniff too much from your boxen (lappen?)

How will they pay for this

[belmolis]

There are at least two ways the airport can pay for this. One is to include it in the fees charged to the airlines: landing fees, rental of hangar and counter space, various other services. Another is to include it in the rent paid by shops and restaurants.

Every bit of business sense

[JumperCable]

While this is great for us Road Warriors, how can this make financial sense?

Simple, Airports get more business (& more fees), Food courts get more people grabbing a danish & a little wi-fi access (most of these road warriors just want to check e-mail anyway, not exactly high bandwidth stuff). Hotels get more business & higher paying business. The business traveler is not paying the bills himself & will tend to select the places with better amenities. Full hotel with free Wi-Fi vs. Empty hotel with no or $20/night Wi-Fi.

Re:Every bit of business sense

[Bastian]

Those cafes sure don't get more business when they come across asshole road warriors like me who park next to the building and check their e-mail without getting out of the car.

heh heh heh

Why not?

[sssmashy]

Since most quality hotels are quite willing to offer free cable internet access within their rooms, why shouldn't airports and public areas with lots of retail/food businesses (such as shopping malls) follow suit? You provide an extra reason for well-heeled Wi-Fi users (who generally have more money to spend than your average joe) to stick around and spend money on coffeeshops, etc. Plus they will be more likely to return.

I bet those places that offer free Wi-Fi will soon be satisfied that it's a cost that pays for itself, and we can expect the trend to continue.

Easy

[Ooter]

Sniff credit card numbers on the wireless network and charge them "convenience fees" which most flyers probably won't complain about :) Lazy americans (myself included)

Re:Easy

[geekoid]

actually, you make a good point.
Set up your own Server, then use a 'age verification' process the gets numbers for, well, age verification.

Load a trojan onto the laptops, so the next time they boot up, it runs a wav file of someone screaming "I'VE GOT A BOMB, AND A GUN, AND I AM GOING TO KILL YOU ALL".

Forgive my ignorance...

[PasteEater]

Please forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't these kinds of WiFi access points be an ideal place to upload a virus or any other type of malicious code onto the internet? I mean, it would be almost untraceable, right? If so, it would seem that almost anyone could write the code/test it on their own machines, and then unleash it on the world from one of these points.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[rcpitt]

That's why you run a firewall (yeah - turn that function that now comes with XP on) or do what I do... run Linux (with full firewall via IPTABLES) and then run VMWare with Win2k inside if you absolutely have to run M$

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[rcpitt]

this is why it makes sense to have such a facility managed by "professionals" - and why you should look at SPF [pobox.com] if you are considering such an installation. It strongly suggests that mail gateways add SASL (Simple Authentication and Security layer) outgoing mail - so you connect via a secure path for outgoing mail to the same place you pick up your incoming mail from.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[xoran99]

Nothing new, though... I can go to my local library and do the same thing through the public computers. They'd never find me... MWA-HA-HA!

ignorance...

[frovingslosh]

So how do you think just being at a public point is going to give you access to put things anywhere you want on the internet? I don't expect many public access points will give you access to a mail or news server (if you need to check your mail you'll likely have to use a web based service, or at the very least connect back to your own mail server (although the normal mail port will likely be blocked)). You don't just send a virus down the wire, you have to deploy it somehow, and that isn't going to be any easier to do at a public access point. Certainly not a major one like would be at an international airport; if you do find a system without good port blocking it will more likely be at the mom and pop operations in your own home town offering free access in their coffee shop, or even driving around and finding someone who just plugged in an access point at home without enabling any security than hacking at "these kinds" of WiFi access point like the subject here.

Don't think that you are completely secure and private when operating from such an access point anyway. You still have a MAC address. If you want to believe that Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft don't have a database with your MAC address in it, that's your business, but more than one computer user has learned the hard way that the MAC address identifies them.

Re:ignorance...

[binarytoaster]

You still have a MAC address. If you want to believe that Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft don't have a database with your MAC address in it, that's your business, but more than one computer user has learned the hard way that the MAC address identifies them.

That's wonderful. Wait, just a second...

ifconfig en0 hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:00

Oh, "snap", now they have a different address to trace.

Fun fun. Everything is configurable. ;)

Oh, "snap"

[frovingslosh]

Oh, "snap", now they have a different address to trace.

And if no one had ever been caught through their MAC address, this would be a good argument. But people have. Some hardware and software might not support that simple MAC address change, and most users will not think to do it. And very few abusers who are stupid enough to try to infect systems in a place where they had to show ID to get in, had cameras take their picture, have computers keeping records of their being their, and likely have security cameras watching and maybe even a bit of electronics listening in on what they do on that wireless link, will be smart enough to cover all of their traces, including the MAC address.

Re:ignorance...

[MoneyT]

all it takes though is a good worm sent to another user's undecured computer. And chances are, by the time anyone catches on to where it came from, the transaction logs are long gone too.

all it takes

[frovingslosh]

all it takes though is a good worm sent to another user's...

If you really can do that, you can do it right now to most users on the Internet. Most users don't have a hardware firewall in place. If they have a software firewall in place they will have on on their laptop, so no differences there. Do you think you need to be in the same room with the guy to send him that virus? Do you think those users are logging your IP address so that you can only magically infect them from a public IP address? The flaws

Re:May I borrow yours?

[Technician]

Oh really? When I installed one on my XP notebook, I had to load drivers from the CD as well. Other people with different brand cards need different drivers. And this is certainly one area where Linux doesn't make it easier than Windows; most wireless cards don't even have Linux drivers. I don't really see this as an easy way to use someone else's MAC address, even if you could find someone willing to just let you share their card.

Another fine example of how Plug-N-Play works to make life easy! somehow I

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[tabdelgawad]

You're right, but that's part of the price of online anonymity in general. Ubiquitous, open, WiFi in the US also means P2P without RIAA subpoenas (I'm sure that doesn't sound too bad to some people!) and whistleblowers without lawsuits to disclose their identities. Globally, it would mean the end of censorship and the redundancy of something like Freenet.

Maybe it's my libertarian instincts, but universal anonymous internet access seems worth the price you mentioned.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[MoneyT]

That assumes your security camera is of a good enough resolution and angle to get what you're doing.

Competitive Advantage

[Draknor]

Think of it as a value-added service - Choice hotels wouldn't even have to mark-up the price of the rooms to cover the marginal cost of WiFi. If I, as a road-warrior, have a choice between a hotel with WiFi and a hotel without, I'm going to choose WiFi. Some people will choose it even for a price premium, but then you start getting into economic slopes & such that I haven't messed with in ages.

Similar for the airport - granted, the market there isn't as fluid, but if the airport starts gaining more interest because it offers free WiFi, it can gain more shops and fast food outlets (= rental revenue), and possible in the long run (and by a long shot) attract marginally more airline business.

Like most people, I think WiFi will become a commodity. It is a relatively inexpensive service to provide that provides a competitive advantage in the short term; as more companies adopt it, it lessens the competitive advantage because everyone has it, and hence, becomes a commodity. Consumers everywhere win!

two words:

[CAIMLAS]

two words: spammers' gateway

Re:two words:

[mattkime]

two words: proxy server

Re:two words:

[LostCluster]

To reach the food court at PIT you have to go through security, which requires a ticket in hand and identity info be presented. Buy a ticket and not fly several times, and that's a great way to be red-flagged as a possible terrorist.

Re:two words:

[frovingslosh]

two words: port blocking

What costs?

[jurgen]

What costs? You mean the $60/month for a DSL the DSL line that's shared by via 802.11 here? That's petty cash, not a cost.

It's so cheap it doesn't make sense to charge for it. The administrative overhead of charging will eat most of the income because not many people will pay. But a lot of people would use it and be appreciative if it's free generating far more valuable goodwill.

Re:What costs?

[frovingslosh]

Business DSL rather than home DSL might cost a location a bit more; but on the other hand many locations (like airlines) will likely already have network access in the terminal area, so the real cost is much less, just a decent firewall and some good network design to be sure their own systems stay secure.

The bottom like is free access at the gates would cost an airline a lot less than even putting out a coffee maker, cups and condiments. And it would get them 24/7 good will with their customers. And make

the devil is in the happy meals

[switcha]

(PIT) has recently dropped its pay-per-use model and has installed free access to the WLAN in the food court and will be expanding access to the gates. ... but how is PIT planning on reclaiming the costs?

There may be a sucker born every minute, but I find that rate strikes me as low when watching people snatch up $6 shit-burgers from under a heat lamp at airport food courts. I'm sure the glut of people hanging out in the food court for wifi, who just may need a snack will take a healthy bite (baddum-ching) out of the wifi bill.

Re:the devil is in the happy meals

[Lord Kano]

There may be a sucker born every minute, but I find that rate strikes me as low when watching people snatch up $6 shit-burgers from under a heat lamp at airport food courts. I'm sure the glut of people hanging out in the food court for wifi, who just may need a snack will take a healthy bite (baddum-ching) out of the wifi bill.

At the Pittsburgh airport, you can't get anywhere near the "Air Mall" which includes the food court unless your're a ticketed passenger.

After 9-11 security was tightened considerab

HTTPSniffer == security madness

[miratim]

Good god. I "work from home", so I often go to the local cafe with free WiFi for a change of pace. All my work stuff is done through encrypted VPN, and I use a software firewall and SSL for everything else. So I'm running EffeTech's HTTP Sniffer to debug my app server, and by default it dumps ALL HTTP traffic on the LAN. So I saw all full HTTP request and responses from all the laptops in the cafe. Mostly dull web surfing, but a lot of people check email using plaintext connections, which blew my mind.

Re:HTTPSniffer == security madness

[rcpitt]

I love having access to my own mail system - it allows me to have all sorts of accounts that attract spam - and I let my Evolution system download all of them with a wide-open text password just to add load to those who might be interested in sniffing... all except the one account I use for "real" email - that is encrypted.

It's about time!

[daddy norcal]

Service. Say it again with me, s-e-r-v-i-c-e. Remember that out dated concept? Where we actually got more for our money?

It's hard to believe any airline giving us a service like wifi for free, but it would be a step in the right direction for an industry in deperate need of some good PR. Hopefully, this roll out continues and we see wifi continue to grow across the nation.

It's crazy!

[chunkwhite86]

I agree this wifi free-for-all is getting out of hand. Heck, I've got three different neighbors providing free wifi! ;-)

Heightened Security Breaches?

[pararox]

It's exciting to hear that wireless internet is becoming more prevalent in public places. It seems the US of A has been several paces behind other countries such as S. Korea when it comes to adoption of widely available, public internet access. Hopefully the ease of setting up wireless networks will remedy this situation.

My excitement to have instant information (via the Internet) at my fingertips, is, however, rather subdued when I consider the lack of precaution many people take securing their comput

Re:Heightened Security Breaches?

[rcpitt]

I believe in Darwin - those who are unfit will die (or at least spend more time reformatting their systems than they do actually online infecting the rest of us)

The point is that whatever problems we are seeing now will be blips on the screen of history eventually (picture M$ as a blip - I dare you)

I don't get worms or viruses - and lots of people I know don't either. Well, we get them - but they don't infect us because we've been immunized by one or another of: education or Linux

The ignorant ones (educa

Hotel WiFi - Even in the middle of nowhere

[E-Lad]

Just this past week, as a part of my Baltimore -> San Francisco roadtrip [elektronkind.org], I stayed at a Days Inn in Farmington, New Mexico. This is a small town up in the way remote area of north-western New Mexico.

I was going to stay at the Holiday Inn there, but what made me change my mind when I rolled into town at 12am was the big banner on the side of the Days Inn which touted "Fee broadband access."

Who would pass that up? Days Inn got my business, and my PowerBook got a open WAP with a great signal in the hotel room. The Days Inn seemed to have a rather decent ADSL connection from local provider digii.net [digii.net]

PIT planning on reclaiming the costs?

[djupedal]

Simple.

Same way Starbucks does...get you in a seat, and sell you stuf...

Re: PIT planning on reclaiming the costs?

[chunkwhite86]

Same way Starbucks does...get you in a seat, and sell you stuf...

Agreed. I've got three large airports within 45 minutes of me. If one of them offered free wifi and the others didnt, it would be a very easy decision which airport to fly out of. I think most business travelers would agree.

WiFi should be like air conditioning used to be ..

[RageEX]

Hotels: "Vacancy, Color TV, Pool, WiFi"
Dinners: "WiFi for Your Convenience!"
Theaters/Stores: "WiFi Inside!"

It's a cheap commercial draw. Combined with public networks, wISPs, Mobile WiFi, etc. the future is looking increasingly cord-free.

Possible Motivation

[ortcutt]

I grew up in Pittsburgh and the airport was designed as an "Airmall" where people waiting for flights or waiting to pick people up would shop and eat. Unlike many airports, the prices are no more than they would be on Main Street. However, all of the shops are on the secure side of the security controls, and so when after 9/11 they changed the rules so that only ticketed passengers could go through security, the shops and restaurants lost half of their customers. Part of the motivation must be, I guess, to help out the restaurants by hoping that passengers will linger for a coffee or a Big Mac while they check their mail before they go to their gates.

What's next?

[dakan]

Coffe shops, book stores, airports, hotels, what's next!? You know where I want to see WiFi access? How about the doctors office, or the DMV? Where I unwilling have to spend hours of my life waiting for someone or something! Or what about WiFi at the grocery store so I can post my shopping list to my blog and then read it off to myself from the comfort of the grocery store asiles.
**Ends Rant**

I'll tell you where they will get the money

[BlueCoder]

Advertizeing of course. People are spending more time in airports than ever before. Giving them something to do reduces stress and makes everyone happier. But it also gives advertizers a market of financially well of people that can afford airline tickets and laptops. Expect to see advertizing with web url's all the more. And remember sitefiner... The airports can do the same thing. They can also supplant web pages temporarily with their own with click throughs. There are millions of ways they can a

balance between being here and being here too long

[rcpitt]

With all the seats in various establishments such as hotels, airports, bistros, coffee shops, etc. vying for our bucks... the question of balance between getting your butt in the seat and getting "turnover" so that the seat generates income is going to become a real problem.

I predict that there will be a market for software that will degrade the quality of a WIFI connection based on the time from first discovery and extended by the amount of coffee (or other valued product) ingested.

Point to Point to Point

[SoupIsGood Food]

It's going to be real interesting when access points start to internetwork and route through each other rather than going through a land line intermediary. The effective cost of bandwidth will drop to the cost of wireless equipment... essentially nothing.

SoupIsGood Food

Wifi draws business

[Linus Sixpack]

Everything else being similar I'd go where I could get free internet.

At this point its probably more expensive to bill and track than it is to deliver. I hope it rapidly becomes a case where no wifi is the exception. Heck there might be cases where no office connection is a feature!

LS

Word of mouth

[tuxedobob]

1. You post on /. that PIT has WiFi.
2.Travelers with a choice between PIT and, say, Cincinnati choose PIT.
3. Profit!!!

Free Wi-Fi at Quad City International Airport -MLI

[DocChaos]

Within the last month, the our local airport has had WI-FI Installed throughout the building here in Moline, Illinois (www.qcairport.com). I doubt its addition will raise any fees for anyone. Mediacom, our local cable company/Hi-speed cable provider, has big signs posted around saying "Free WI-FI Provided by Mediacom Online" so, one can assume that the airport may actually be making money or at least getting it for free by providing advertising space for Mediacom and Mediacom providing free internet acces

free air

[soundofthemoon]

No one charges for air conditioning or heat, even though there are days when people would gladly pay for it. As other have said, the cost of limiting and charging for WiFi access is often much greater than what you get from the charges.

Answer

[Have Blue]

It doesn't make financial sense. No business that relies solely on providing wireless access for profit will succeed. What's probably going to happen is that wifi access is just going to become an expected service of any respectable establishment, like pay phones or air conditioning.

Airconditioning/heating

[TheLink]

I bet airconditioning and heating costs a lot more than WiFi+Internet.

And the airport provides these to anyone who walks in for free.

Heck without the dynamic access controls and payment stuff it's only slightly more complicated than providing piped in music and announcements.

Of course if more people started supporting my suggestion of using http://here/ to get more info about the network you are using "here", there'll be more scope for some interesting stuff. e.g. malls can redirect you to a different website depending which Mall Zone's "here" you are in - listing specials. Heck you might even be able to vote for the piped in music you want ;).

Similarly for a cafe - you could chat/play games with patrons locally.

I try and schedule flights through PIT now...

[spagthorpe]

I flew there for the first time a few months ago, and was happy to find open WIFI in the food court, as well as shops and food that were not jacked up to normal airport prices. Nothing there was any more than at a regular shopping mall. Since then, I have intentionally scheduled my flights back to where I work so that my layover is at PIT. If I'm stuck there a few hours, I could care less. It's perfect for catching up on mail and surfing. In my case, it IS making a difference.

Economics

[Effugas]

Cost to DSL providers for providing net access to a residence is down to $20/mo. Quintuple that to $100/mo for shits and giggles. Tack on another $100 for the access point.

For a year, that's $1200+$100 = $1300 / 365 = $3.56 per day per access point. If your business can make an extra three and a half dollars per day by having net access around, you should set up wifi.

Of course, if you TRY to charge, and TRY to set up all these complicated access mechanisms, you have to spend all this money on support -- money you never make back.

--Dan

Re:Economics

[Kludge]

you need something more reliable and faster than DSL, a failover setup, ...

No, you don't. You're giving something away for free. People aren't going to expect a lot. If they need something more reliable, they can buy it elsewhere.

Makes a lot of cents

[ducomputergeek]

The cost to implent wifi and broadband these days is pretty cheap. I worked for a short time a couple years ago that was attempting to place internet kiosks into hotels, however I kept saying that the company needed to find another market because WiFi was going o replace their pay per use and advertising model.

I got fired, formed my own consulting company and now our business is taking off and my old company is in Chapter 11.

But that's beyond the point. One of my favorite places o go is a locally owned coffee house. About 4 years ago they bought a couple used laptops and rented then out for $7 an hour. About 18 months ago, they started giving free WiFI, guess what, they've made a lot more money, because people like me use it to work away from work. I deal with customers from 10 AM - 5PM, then about 5:30 goto the coffee shop, grab a bite to eat, a bottomless cup and do my work until about 8PM, then go home. Guess what though, I am so regular as soon as I walk in, they tell the exact bill and everything's ready togo. We often meet clients there as well because of the asmostphere. $100 in gear and $80 a month for a commerical Cable connection is pretty cheap to bring in repeat customers. Hell, they proably almost recover the bill from me alone. When they switched to free mode, two new coffee houses were opening in the area. Guess what, they are still in business, one is out of business, and the third is still there, but doesn't do near the business as the local favorite.

Hotels are another story. I was at a meeting/seminar at a hotel and I was the first to test their WiFI connection. Its extremely handy and we quickly booked our next daylong seminar because of the easy access. Now others offer the same, but its a convience, and if they can improve bookings by 5 - 10%, it will more than pay for the service.

My last story is that of our favorite all night diner. Its not uncommon for us to work until 1 or 2 AM. Usually take an hour off for news and Leno's monologue then go out for coffee and a late night snack. Well, we noticed that they too put in free WiFI access. We sometimes have working lunches there as well, although its not widely used as say the coffee house.

Priceless

[smoon]

10 wireless access points: $1,000
Internet T1: Already in place, so free
dsniff, mailsnarf, etc. sensor: Teds old P-400, so free

Getting thousands of people to provide their personal info unencrypted over our network every day so that we can re-sell it to marketers: Priceless

Sorry. Had to be done.

Razor-blade model? (Free Wifi pay for power?)

[swb]

I'll admit to paying for wifi at MSP, but I also get to expense it, so the cost doesn't matter to me. What drives me batshit is the scarcity of *outlets* at airports! Maybe this is how they plan to pay for it, by putting in paid electricity!

What's the deal with outlets at airports, anyway? I know it'd be far more expensive to add outlets in the middle of the floor or in places where there was no easy access to power, but it's hard to find ANY outlets, and when you do find them they're often far from your specific gate, in the middle of a hallway, or just nonexistent. Part of the reason I find this so surprising is that most electical codes require an outlet every 6 feet or something, yet in an 2000 sq ft area I found three, with only two in a usable place -- and when I dug around in my bag looking for something, I had two people approach me asking if I was leaving, eyeing the outlet.

Battery power is fine if you don't turn on the laptop during the flight or carry a couple of extra batteries. I don't (weight, etc), and I like to save my batteries for watching DVDs during the flight. But with outlets so scarce, I think I might be forced to get a couple of extra batteries just to deal with the lack of power.

Besides the tongue-in-cheek reference to paying for power, the other idea that occured to me is the dreaded advertising model for wifi -- give away access, but transparent proxy all web requests and add popup and banner hijacking advertising. Sure, it won't affect those of us that use VPN or ssh tunnels to our own proxies, but they can solve that with NAT and/or locked-down access.

CMH (Port Columbus International)

[horatio]

CMH [port-columbus.com] has had WiFi access throughout the airport [port-columbus.com] for some time now. I happened to be coming home around Christmas time and saw a random sign while waiting for my luggage about WiFi being available.

I went down to an empty corner of the baggage claim area to wait for my ride to show up, and sure enough there was what appeared to be unhindered (no port blocking, etc) WiFi access. And I never really considered CMH to be one of the "leading edge" airports in the country.

airports with free wifi and paying for it

[joey]

The article includes a quite to the effect that this is the first airport in the US, and second in the world with free wifi. That's not true, I have found free wifi in a few large airports. And my smalltown local airport (TRI) has extensive free wifi throughout, plus free public terminals.

TRI's network is sponsored by $LARGE_POLLUTING_LOCAL_COMPANY, which happens to fly lots of employees to Atlanta on a semi-daily basis. I belive that it was economical for them to sponsor the free wireless because now their employees can get some work in at the airport. It probably paid for itself quite fast.

Re:Where I work

[xoran99]

At the ISP where I work, I can sit in the lobby and pick up about 3 other free wide open WiFi APs from the couch in the lobby.

Imagine that... An ISP employee looking for internet access at work...

Re:From Mr. Understatement...

[0xfc]

The library is a public place. Anyone can use it for whatever means.

What one can do to abuse wifi is pretty well known. It appears they think the risk is worth it. Why let a few bad apples ruin it for all?

If the admin is capable and has a minimal budget, he can alleviate a lot. Bandwidth shaping (let it burst at first, but after so much data throttle it back). I guess one could filter known attacks.

Also people are actively working on these problems. Check this out.

Roland van Laar has a new, significan

Re:Free Access great for pedophiles

[CrankyFool]

That's a good thing.

Anonymity benefits our society far more than it harms it.

Re:Free Access great for pedophiles

[frovingslosh]

Yea, because so many more perverts like to go to places like highly monitored government buildings crawling with security people and checkpoints and other people and cameras that can see their screens than, say, just drive around the 'burbs in the privacy of their cars looking for an open access point.

youknow what would have been better?

[geekoid]

hookers.

Free Hooker access points. You would have people lined up around the block. Hell get rid of the damn planes, they just cost too much.