One fundamental problem with free wi-fi is that its just that - free Wifi. You have to market some portion of it at a cost basis to reduce management costs or it will be a money pit (Duh). With the capabilities of networks today, wired and wireless, There is no reason you cannot allocate bandwidth for Municipalities, Free personal Users, and Business class users on a pay for basis. Now this just doesn't have to be limited to a SOHO environment, but wireless digital advertisers at perhaps at the Light rail, EL, or "Tube" (as our friendly pond poppers call it .Not a jab, We just put our's above ground, from some ungodly reason) Stations. Now I don't think that municipalities should fit the Bill, I think the corporations backing such installations need a new marketing and idea comittee. Because there is no reason this shouldn't be a viable product.

they are now shutting down the free (limited time access) internet in norwich...thank god!!!

just 10k private access points to go across the city.

somedays a 150mw Wi-Fi Jammer is simply not enough...

Thomas,

The issue is whether there needs to be a product at all. Why not a kind of "tax" where each member of the mesh gives a little bit so that the whole mesh can function properly. Or perhaps sees it as a donation...

This is San Francisco, why is a PRODUCT needed? Won't LOVE do just as well?

I'll take three for me!

I hope someday the people of the world come to grips with the reality, "free" does not necessarily = "good". You get what you pay for.

Paris, cuz she will mine your data to deliver a more personal Tabloid Hijinx.

This is just the sort of thing PHORM should get involved in :)

Oh wait, privacy concerns with google involved, what about privacy concerns with PHORM involved, guess that wouldn't work.

Go live in an underground bunker.

I live in the Mission district of San Francisco, and while my laptop finds "Free the Net" on a fairly regular basis, I manage to associate with it maybe one time in three: the signal strength is always awful, even though I've tried different locations it is never any good.

On the occasions when I have managed to connect, I've never managed to move a single byte of data over it. I can't tell if it's oversubscribed and just choked, or if it's all a fake and they don't actually provide any internet connection at all, but I have not once in several months of trying succeeded in using it at all.

My experience is shared by those of my friends who have bothered to try it... I kind of wonder what they're spending all this money for. If this is the level of service that they wish to offer, I should have bid for the contract at half the price ;)

Seriously?

You're kidding, right?

You know tinfoil hats will protect you from all those harmful energy rays, right?

WiMAX uses microwave freqs - 2.5, 3.5 and 5.5 GHz and they use 25Watt transmitters - puny WiFi routes at 80mW are nothing compared to what you are about to get bombarded with

They use high power to get the range and to counteract absorption - and yes, human bodies absorb those freqs very well.

Everyone seems to have forgotton about WiMAX and their health.

Many towns and even small villages in Catalunia are installing free WiFi. It's run by the municipality and financed by what British call "rates" and everyone else calls municipal taxes. Access is for residents only and you get a password from the townhall if you are living there. System seems to work well.

To be honest, I have never understood why people keep pushing to use WiFi for a task it was never designed for.

Re: the gentleman in the Mission District of SF who gets a flaky Meraki signal - I also live in SF, and these days in this part of the world, WiFi signals are everywhere. The last thing we need is yet another signal stomping on top of all the other AP's, that are already stomping on top of all the other AP's, that are...

There are 11 802.11b/g "channels" in the USA, of which only 3 are completely isolated from the rest, assuming no one uses any but those 3. (bad assumption)

Thus it's not uncommon to do a search and find literally 6-10 AP's all sitting on the same frequency, and upwards of 20-30 visible signals at a single location. In my apartment, I'm seriously considering switching to 802.11a, just to escape the 2.4Ghz RF ghetto..

OK, you go buy me one and we'll all go live in it, last price listed was about 500k+ for a empty one(and no im not moving to arazona to live in a Titan launch silo).

oh and wimax is in trouble in UK as 3.5Ghz is MOD restricted, and i don tthink they are gonna give that block up for luv or $$$

the idiots who are pushing wi-fi have forgotten that it all goes to shit, once everyone has it.

only 14 channels, 100+ AP's, 200+ devices screaming at each other to be heard over the noise of the neighbours.

= lots of people with no service, and everyone with unexplained headaches and later on 'CANCER'

hmmm time to move to the countryside,,,, eastern europe is nice this time of year, so long as you can stand the sand flies....

In case you didn't realise, radio jammers work by emitting louder stronger signals on the same frequency. Good job.