Starbucks (US) has set up a social networking site where customers can sign up and share their Starbucks experience, fire off new idea’s and have people vote on them. Current number one is “All stores free wifi”. As some customers comment:
“I purposely go to a cafe in my home town that offers free wi-fi. I drive by 3 Starbucks on the way there and pay 50 cents more for the mocha for the free wi-fi.”
As an added bonus, the coffee may probably be better too… Read more over at Computer World.
If I think of all the small, independent coffee shops around town, you could form a really big mesh of free wifi in the CBD.
Tuesday, Mar 18th, 2008
Categories: Meraki
It’s been six months since the first Meraki group buy through the Facebook group.
I thought I quickly ping the community to see where we’re at.
Everyone, please feel free to respond, to one or all questions, even if you’ve only been sharing for a week. It may inspire other people to join.
A) How much bandwidth have you shared?
B) How many users are you sharing with (unique/total)?
C) Nr of Merakis open for public?
D) Standard or pro edition?
E) Are your sharing with other devices (Fon, Tomizone, Open-Mesh…)?
F) Where about (general location, suburb)?
G) Did you register on any mapping site (icanhazmeraki.net, nodedb.com,…)?
H) any horror stories?
Thanks!
Cross post from Facebook…
Tuesday, Mar 18th, 2008
Categories: Media
MIT Technology Review writes about Intel’s Rural Connectivity Platform (RCP):
“Intel has announced plans to sell a specialized Wi-Fi platform later this year that can send data from a city to outlying rural areas tens of miles away, connecting sparsely populated villages to the Internet.”
“The point-to-point technology will require two nodes, which could provide “full back-end infrastructure” for less than US$1,000. One node is usually installed at the edge of an urban area, wired to a local-area network cable Using a directional antenna, the device shoots data to a receiving antenna as far as 60 miles away. Once a node is installed in a village, the connection can be dispersed using standard cables and wireless routers.”
Read on at technologyreview.com.
Great news for rural areas in Australia and around the world.
Just received my Meraki Mini Pro, and a Meraki High-Gain Omni-Directional Antenna for the outdoors one. They also included some stickers and a brochure (because I asked for something promo material).
Quick write-up. Playing around with the Pro dashboard. Main different feature is the user registration (and the possibility of billing, but I won’t be using that). It is disappointing that you can’t limit bandwidth/usage on a per user basis, I thought the usage configuration would be more elaborate. You can also disable the spashpage and the messaging toolbar, but I want to use both of them anyway. So, not sure if it’s worth the extra 100$, tripling the price of the Mini, or double the price of the Outdoors.
Now both the Outdoors and the Mini Pro are gateways. When I unplug the Mini Pro from my router, it automatically connects to the Outdoors, which is pretty cool (the meshing feature). But because that is a Standard version, the Mini becomes a Standard too (as expected).
I can now also see the other neigbor network through the dashboard, so when two Meraki networks are within each others reach, they can see each other, and connect to each other when one’s connection drops (as tested by unplugging). When connected to one, I can get the signal strength of the other through my.meraki.com, in dB. The Outdoors (euh, outdoors) with high-gain antenna gives me 58dB, the Mini indoors gives me 50dB.
Here is an interesting rundown on the history of Meraki and perceived negative changes that have been made to the original offering. Changes like forced advertising on the original price point while tripling the price to use the ‘Pro’ service allowing you to charge for access, most recently the right to flash other firmware onto Meraki hardware has been removed.
These changes have lead to splinter groups that are working hard (and successfully) to duplicate Meraki’s offering in an entirely open source solution. See http://www.open-mesh.com/ for one such group.
Meraki makes another business blunder
After just a few months, Meraki responded by updating their End User License Agreement [...] (which) allows the Meraki to
prevent any changes to the Meraki hardware or firmware (software) on
any new hardware purchases.[...] My ultimate goal is a completely open source solution for creating a Wireless Open Mesh Network by April 1st. Let’s work together to make that goal achievable everywhere!
Tuesday, Mar 11th, 2008
Categories: Media
Ericsson predicts:
“The rapid growth of mobile broadband is set to make Wi-Fi hotspots irrelevant. Hotspots at places like Starbucks are becoming the telephone boxes of the broadband era,” claimed Ericsson’s chief marketing officer Johan Bergendahl, speaking to delegates at the European Computer Audit, Control and Security Conference in Stockholm.
Bold prediction. But it is a marketing executive after all. But I’m not dissing him at all. For my mobile needs, and while we’re building out the Australian wide free wireless network, I have a Vodafone 3G modem which is A$39 for 5Gb. Imaging this becoming 10-20Gb in a considerable time. I’d need a portable, battery-powered router though, which connects my iPod, and my PSP, and my eeePC, and… to my mobile broadband modem. We can look forward to a free mobile wireless (3G-4G) network, where I take my broadband connection with me around town. I would become a walking node in a city-wide mesh network. My home neighbors wouldn’t be too happy (when I’m away, they can’t connect to my internet connection), but I’d make lots of friends around town. Or rather stalkers…
On a side note, Ericsson also won a Vodafone contract to deliver HSPA hardware and software for an upgrade of its 3G network in Australia, fully implemented by the end of the year.
One webdesigners journey with his Merakis:
“Now I am not a radio-wireless geek so I am only guessing, but I would expect that in order for this to work, every 10th house in a street would need to share their paid internet connection, and every 5th house would need a repeater. Not a big ask, but it remains a challenge. I think it can be done, we just need to spread the word.”
“It’s time for a cheaper, free internet. And to adapt a phrase from the Treasurer of the last Federal Government: Get a Meraki for yourself, one for your husband and one for the country.”
Read more about the Pro edition dashboard at NetLife.
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.