Thursday, Oct 23rd, 2008
Categories: Media
iBurst, recently providing free internet access as a sponsor of Web Directions South , is about to terminate its wireless network, ZDNet writes. The BigAir Group was one party interested in taking over the iBurst assets, but:
“BigAir Group Limited announced today it has been notified by the Receivers for the Commander Group, McGrathNicol, that its bid to acquire the iBurst assets of Personal Broadband Australia (PBA) was unsuccessful… The Company has also been advised by the Receivers that they intend to discontinue providing iBurst services and the network will be shut down and closed no later than December 19th 2008.”
iBurst was launched in 2003, and was one of the first to offer wide area wireless broadband internet. But last couple of years mobile telcos’ coverage of 3G grew both in reach and speed, and iBurst modems were too expensive, and bigger than the small 3G USB dongles.
I’d still like to salute iBurst for providing us with free internet access at Web Directions South last month, and the technicians then present. It must have been a difficult period for them knowing the company wasn’t in the best condition.
Wednesday, Oct 15th, 2008
Categories: Social
Poverty manifests itself through different guises. When we think of poverty, we’d immediately recall a homeless person or a malnourished African child, a reflection of economical poverty. Social poverty is the result of lack of social capital. As per J.D. Lewandowski, “the concept of social capital refers to the networks of social trust and social connections that serve to enable individual and collective actions in a given social structure or society.” Social exclusion is often a cause of poverty, conflict and insecurity. Improving social inclusion increases one’s well-being, mentally as well as economically.
The Internet has enabled a way of social interaction and connections which facilitate the kinds of action that “make democracy work” (Robert Putnam). It enables freedom of movement up and down the socio-economic and cultural ladder through social participation and human development. It offers economic opportunities and access to public and social services.
On the Internet, everyone can be anyone, and social division becomes a non-issue (though actually new social divisions are constantly being created, on a different level – are you on MySpace or Facebook?). In fact, “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” (Peter Steiner’s cartoon). Another joke goes “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Internet and he won’t bother you for weeks.” But that man might rise up to be the next Internet millionaire. Access to the Internet is an instrumental right for the improvement of people’s capability. Missing out restrains personal growth. That’s also why gouvernments provide libraries, and Internet access at libraries. It gives people access to knowledge, but libraries are a less than ideal environment for social interaction. Bringing the Internet closer to the community, closer to home, empowers people to take control of their own social network (online and offline). That’s where Free Sydney Wireless (Free Australia Wireless) fits in. By providing free Internet access, through a shared connection, we try to bridge the social divide in our own community, closest to us. This hardly costs us anything extra, as we already pay for Internet access. This is our small contribution to tackle social poverty.
The growth of social networking and user generated content reflects the deep rooted need of people for self expression, social interaction and peer validation. People sharing without personal financial gain. As they do, others do. Or so we hope anyway.
What are you waiting for, why not get involved?
Reposted from halans.com.
Monday, Sep 22nd, 2008
Categories: Media
Today’s One Web Day
On the third annual “Earth Day for the Internet”, communities across the country are holding events to learn about and advocate for that marvel of modern infrastructure, the Internet.
Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally.
The theme of this year’s OneWebDay is online participation in democracy, coinciding with the U.S. elections.
Melbourne is the only Australian city participating with their Future Melbourne project.
Almost twenty years on, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, creates the World Wide Web Foundation, the Web as humanity connected by technology:
The World Wide Web Foundation seeks to advance One Web that is free and open, to expand the Web’s capability and robustness, and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet. The Web Foundation brings together business leaders, technology innovators, academia, government, NGOs, and experts in many fields to tackle challenges that, like the Web, are global in scale.
The mission of the Foundation is:
- to advance One Web that is free and open,
- to expand the Web’s capability and robustness,
- and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.
In a world where Net neutrality is under threat, and the intertubes are being censored, this is a welcome initiative. I believe Free Australia Wireless fits perfectly in the Web Foundation’s “Web for Society” and “Friends of the Web” programs.
Read the Web Foundation’s concept paper.
Meraki posted some interesting metric tidbits on its product blog last week:
In the course of building Free the Net in San Francisco, we came across some compelling metrics. Since its birth about a year ago, nearly 150,000 wireless devices have used the network. The percentage of those devices made up by iPhones has grown from 6% to 20% in just the past five months.
San Francisco, or California for that matter, isn’t indicative for iPhone usage around the world (with Apple and Silicon Valley around the corner). But it is an obvious trend that more and more devices have integrated Wifi, mobile broadband is still too slow and too expensive, and people want to connect, preferably free. Free, ubiquitous wireless internet, municipal or community driven, offers opportunity for social interaction, information gathering and innovative services we don’t know of yet. The iPhone hype, and any other Bold move by Blackberry, may well be the driving force for more free wireless Internet (one can hope and dream), even in Sydney.
Meraki will be developing a separate iPhone splash screen which Meraki users will be able to set up and customize soon.
Sunday, Sep 14th, 2008
Categories: Social
Good times are coming. In just over a week Web Directions South, the major Australian Web development conference, kicks of with 2-day workshops and a 2-day conference at the Sydney Expo in Darling Harbour. Free Australia Wireless will be meshing the conference area, so meet us there!
The traditional Port80 pre-Web Directions South (night before the conference) drinks are on again on September 24th, 6.30pm at the Harlequin Inn, with a sponsored bar-tab (thanks Clever Starfish, Radharc and Free Australia Wireless):
Harlequin Inn
Cnr Harris & Union Streets
Pyrmont NSW 2009
After a 12 month hiatus, Webjam v8 is back for a splendid night of quick-fire presentations of new, innovative web projects, September 25th, the first evening of the WDS conference. If you haven’t registered yet, do it now, ’cause places are limited and sure to fill up quickly! And while you’re at it, why not register to pimp your project! Upstairs at Bar Broadway at 7:30pm.
Bar Broadway
Cnr Broadway & Regent Streets
Ultimo NSW 2007
Next weekend, right before Web Directions South, Oz-IA, Australia’s Information Architecture conference, takes place at the Stamford Plaza in Double Bay.
Saturday, Sep 13th, 2008
Categories: Media
The Register writes that a BT study found that about one-third of US enterprises are deploying 11n:
“The unprecedented level of early adoption of a corporate technology seems to indicate a genuine and urgent need for high speed communications, and the maturity of this sector, moving to mission-critical deployments and in some cases, seeing companies moving to wireless as their primary network rather than a back-up.”
Read on at The Register.
Once business users get used to high-speed wireless data at the office, they will want it out of the office too.
Click Chick (Alison Stewart) writes about a new free Wifi project in Hawaii:
As of last week, CB Richard Ellis became the first commercial real estate company to provide free Wi-Fi in public areas of its managed buildings.
Last year Kokua Wireless provided more than 100 Meraki wireless receiver/transmitters to the city at no charge to launch the Chinatown coverage we have today.
Messaging, wireless metering and monitoring are only some of the managed services a real estate company can offer their customers with an Internet connection. Free wireless Internet is a great bonus.
Any Aussie telco’s willing to distribute 100 access points for free?
While we’re still waiting for 802.11n to be approved, but we’re happily using it (with some consequences that devices don’t interoperate), the IEEE has ratified the 802.11r Wifi roaming standard, aka Fast Basic Service Set Transition. A pretty significant standard actually, especially with municipal/community Wifi in mind, covering large areas.
802.11r is a standard that lets Wifi devices roam quickly between access points, in less than 50ms, quick enough to keep a voice call alive. This much improves VoIP over Wifi and mobile browsing with minimal disruptions caused by changing access points and channels. Current roaming delays in 802.11 networks average in the hundreds of milliseconds, up to several seconds, as these 802.11 standards were originally defined with single access points in mind. While some have proclaimed 802.11 a/b/g/n… to be near-dead in favour of 3G mobile broadband or WIMax, this 802.11r standard proves it’s still alive and kicking.
Read on at DailyWireless.
Network World describes the situation on some university campusses, where more and more students pack a laptop and other wifi enabled devices, and are streaming youtube and personal media over the network.
Early WLANs focused on growing the number of access points to cover a given area. But today, many wireless administrators are focusing more attention on scaling capacity. That focus is a broad one, calling for a deeper understanding of what access points are capable of, and paying more attention to scaling back-end systems, servers and networks.
Multimedia use is surging, and 802.11n is expected to make it surge still more. All these universities are configuring their wireless LANS for multicast support, to minimize bandwidth demands where possible. Users in effect tune into a single multicast stream (analogous to viewing broadcast TV) rather than each one receiving his or her own separate, unicast stream.
Read on at Network World.