Archive for February, 2008
Tuesday, Feb 26th, 2008
Categories: Media
Chris Anderson writes in Wired:
Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
[...] What Mead understood is that a psychological switch should flip as things head toward zero. Even though they may never become entirely free, as the price drops there is great advantage to be had in treating them as if they were free. Not too cheap to meter, as Atomic Energy Commission chief Lewis Strauss said in a different context, but too cheap to matter. Indeed, the history of technological innovation has been marked by people spotting such price and performance trends and getting ahead of them [...]
This is a fantastic read. It touches on this great point – to treat things whose costs are falling as if they were free. In our context, bandwidth is always going up, so why not treat a Wi-fi hotspot as if it were free?
This means not worrying about trying to give customers free minutes on your network, when the costs of auditing and managing that are not free (that has to use extra time of your staff who should be doing the paid work of your business!)
Tuesday, Feb 26th, 2008
Categories: Media
I mentioned iiNet and Tomizone earlier, but they deserves a separate post. From their business section:
“Your Hotspot location will be shown on our site so customers can come to you. You can add people to your Hotspot who can have free access – this means that they don’t have to pay to access your hotspot. A great bonus to a customer for buying your product.”
So, for business only?
It only works with Belkin wireless routers, which then need a firmware upgrade to play nice with Tomizone.
Tomizone only shows 4 hotspots for Sydney. I guess there are more Meraki access points around!
Monday, Feb 25th, 2008
Categories: Media
Since a couple of weeks, the City of Sydney is trialling free wireless internet in the city’s libraries:
“Visitors can now jump online at various locations thanks to a new Free Wireless Internet trial. Why not grab your laptop and drop in to Customs House, Glebe, Newtown, Ultimo or Haymarket Libraries and connect to the Internet free of charge.
Free Internet access using the library’s computers is also available. N.B: Please check the conditions of use.
Bring your own laptop and connect to the Internet free of charge!”
ZDnet has more on the story:
“With only a fortnight to go before the hotspots are switched off, a spokesperson has said that users won’t have long to wait before access becomes a permanent fixture.”
“The Council’s libraries manager added that the decision was made before the trial not to promote it heavily, as officials wanted to gauge the response of the public ahead of a permanent rollout.”
Read on at ZDnet.
Sunday, Feb 17th, 2008
Categories: Media
As if we didn’t know already, Mike Elgan tells us wi-fi wants to be free, about the Starbuck’s deal with AT&T:
“Wi-Fi used to be a resource for rent, now it’s the new toaster. This week, a kind of “tipping point” has been reached, and now — instead of being rented for a fee — Wi-Fi will increasingly be given away to motivate customers to buy other goods and services.”
The thing is, wi-fi is kind of hard to contain within four walls. In case of Starbucks, you’ll need a Starbucks card though, which would give you 2 hours of free wi-fi access a day. Can’t wait for them to introduce this over here (if ever). Since there’s dozens of them in the city, it would add a dozen of free access points (if you’re willing to get a Starbucks card)…
The coming years pressure will be on for all sorts of businesses to expand their service into offering free wi-fi: alternative coffee shops, food courts, department stores, shopping malls… A shopping mall for example could have one gateway Meraki connected to a single DSL line, and have Meraki repeaters dotted around the mall (and especially at coffee shops or their food court), with minimal investment. The cost for the internet connection should not be seen as an option, as a nice to have, but as a common utility, like electricity, water and gas. And given time, I think it will.
Now if only alternative ISPs would jump on this, like iiNet, and offer free wi-fi around town, branded with their logo, and I’d be happy to have it throttled (over time free wi-fi would compete on its available speed). To be fair, iiNet kind of already does something with Tomizone, giving its customers 100Mb per month on these wi-fi access points.
Nah, guess we’ll have to do it ourselves…
Oops, the week I get my face and URL into a newspaper, I managed to kill my blog…
Luckily I had a backup, which didn’t really work…
So took the opportunity to upgrade Wordpress to its latest version at the same time.
All well again, pfeww.
(unless you see something weird, then please leave a comment)
Sydney Morning Herald already picked up Meraki earlier in the year. But now they also pick up Free Sydney Wireless, and interviewed yours truly…
“Frustrated by the NSW Government’s stalled free wi-fi project, a group of Facebookers have decided to start their own.”
“Free Sydney Wireless’ next recruiting drive will be in March at Barcamp, an informal web developers’ get-together. “We will try to set up a wireless net at Barcamp using Merakis, in the hope that it spurs more people to install their own Meraki.”
Read all at SMH.com.au
If you want to get in touch, please register and leave a comment. Thanks!
If you’re interested in joining the fun (get a Meraki), head over to the Facebook group and look into the group buy post (but you do need a Facebook account – try to sort that out with an open forum or wiki soon).
Monday, Feb 11th, 2008
Categories: Social
Another fine example of empowering communities by providing access to technology and the internet, as provided by ZeroDivide (SanFran, US):
“Booker T. Washington’s partnership with Meraki to provide an affordable and easy to use technology for its community is an integral part of its success. Using Meraki’s tools enabled them to provide free Internet access to an entire square block.”
“The WiFi project has empowered residents to take control of their own network and create content relevant to the housing community.”
Read on at ZeroDivide.
Does anyone know of similar projects around Australia?
Mauricio Freitas writes about a Meraki deployment in Wellington:
“The project is being initially sponsored by Webstock 2008 and Govis, who are creating a fund with their donations of NZ$5,000 and $9,000 respectively to purchase those devices and donate to individuals and companies who want to start sharing their networks.”
Webstock is a NZ web conference (WebDirections South, are your reading this?)…
Read all about the project at Geekzone.co.nz and TheFreeNet (Aotearoa).
Ian Woolf interviews Lachlan Hardy (the man who got the ball rolling) about freeing the net in Australia with Meraki wireless meshing routers. Download the interview at Here’s Why.