Intro
The Internet is not a new concept, but the technology has evolved to a point where it is now possible to provide free public WiFi in most homes.
The problem with WiFi is that it costs money and can be slow. It’s not the best solution when you want to communicate quickly or when you want to stay in touch with your friends and family.
This is where public WiFi hotspots come in. They are cheap enough to put in front of coffee shops, restaurants and libraries. They are fast enough to get you online when you need them (the speed can vary depending on the location). And they work just like a phone line so that you can use them for voice calls as well (this requires more sophisticated infrastructure).
If you’re an entrepreneur and you have a business idea that could benefit from this new technology, then check out our guide: How can I start marketing my product on the Internet? It will show you how to create an account on one of several public hotspots in your area and learn how to use them.
The public Internet is free, but what does it cost?
There are a couple of ways to look at this:
• The public Internet is free. If you’re in a country with a well-functioning public Internet. It can cost as much as $1 per hour if you’re outside that market.
• The public Internet is publicly funded: there are no fees that the government forces you to pay for access. The difference between one country and another is a matter of geography and infrastructure: in countries like China, where there are no public IP networks available and the infrastructure is not yet up to snuff, the cost of access is relatively high (though even in China, which has some of the world’s fastest broadband speeds, it costs more than $1 per hour).
At first glance, both arguments seem right — but I think we need to put them side by side for a moment. The first argument says that all countries have access to accessible facilities for all citizens, so why does the average person in other countries have to pay? Why not just build the network? The second argument says that these networks don’t all exist yet — and if they did exist, it would be prohibitively expensive to build them — so why wouldn’t we just use wireless connectivity instead?
If anything about this conversation matters at all, it should be about how high-speed wireless infrastructure becomes affordable — or whether it does or not at all — so we can improve our economic conditions and increase our standard of living. But this isn’t happening anytime soon: wireless connectivity technology is still advancing very slowly. In other words: what are we waiting on?
So what should we do? We should focus on improving WiFi access immediately in those places where carriers have invested heavily (and thus insisted on subsidizing) already existing infrastructure; then, we can move forward with more ambitious goals later down the road. Another good example: South Korea (which has one of the world’s most efficient broadband networks) currently subsidizes access throughout its territory by 25 times its national average (whereas in US states like California or New York state where only about 1/4th of residents have fast broadband service). They also offer free WiFi worldwide in “public libraries”, which serve as “government-sponsored WiFi hotspots” (and require users to pay for WiFi use elsewhere but keep their data usage.
How a free public Internet could change the game
Although many cities across the world have established, or are in the process of establishing, WiFi networks as a public amenity, it is not without its critics. The sheer cost of setting up and maintaining such a network is too high for many cities to bear, and as such, WiFi is often seen as impractical in public spaces and even parks.
The Internet has revolutionized our daily lives, providing us with so much information that we can’t afford to ignore it. When we travel abroad, it allows us to access the world in ways we never imagined: travel websites, blogs and podcasts for free (and then some), streaming services like Netflix and Hulu for a fraction of what you pay at home and ease of shopping online. But there is one thing that seems to be missing from this modern world: WiFi.
There are several reasons why WiFi is not as ubiquitous as we would like it to be:
• High costs – Having your own wired connection can be costly because you need some type of utility company to put out power lines into your neighbourhood so you can connect your laptop or smartphone. This may or may not be an issue depending on where you live, but if you are connected via cellular data or satellite signal, the best option might be to invest in WiFi at home instead.
• Latency – Your local router may take some time to connect with the network; this latency has been previously measured by internet providers, but most people do not realize what they are actually paying for when they sign up with an internet service provider (ISP). You may think that your ISP will automatically offer better speed than what you get through your wide area network, but that isn’t always the case (especially when under heavy load). If you have high latency issues after connecting to your home WiFi network, it could mean that there is something wrong with your router or ISP itself; both things cost money, and if one isn’t working properly on top of everything else, the chances are things will start going wrong quickly.
The past, present and future of the Public Internet
Hospitals and training centres, schools and universities and military facilities can use WiFi networks to connect people with disabilities to the Internet. But it has a big drawback: it’s slow, inefficient and expensive.
This is true all over the US — in big cities, small towns, rural areas — all the way down to Delaware, where there are no public WiFi hot spots. And that’s just the problem with public WiFi hotspots. You can use them for free if you’re connected to a cable or DSL connection (too slow), but you can’t use them if you don’t have any Internet access at all (not enough bandwidth). And yes, this is still happening in New York City, which is what I was referring to earlier in this post. Public Internet “hotspots” are slowly being implemented in major cities across the country as an answer to this problem.
But these solutions have two problems: 1) they require location-based data from users; 2) they tie up bandwidth for the rest of your network. They are either too expensive or too slow for many people, who would prefer not to pay extra if they don’t need it (but then again, who wouldn’t?).
Once upon a time, there was an idea called Expedia, which combined location-based data with a robust search engine so travellers could book hotels based on preferences like price range or amenities while simultaneously ensuring that they didn’t end up paying more than they should have through their credit card company (it wasn’t perfect and some sites had technical problems leading up to launch, but overall it was generally accepted as a helpful tool). In fact, it was so useful that Expedia was acquired by Google for $1.6 billion in 2010.
Today we live in a world where hotel booking websites are becoming increasingly powerful monetization engines — just look at Airbnb. But I guarantee you won’t see them making any mention of public WiFi hotspots as viable long term revenue sources. They simply don’t find them profitable enough yet.
If you really want public WiFi hotspots to be relevant long term though, then here are some things that would make sense:
1) set up affordable/affordable/affordable paid plans vs free plans
2) make sure that users can choose from multiple speeds
3) separate out connections by provider
4) make sure that they last longer
5) integrate with a management software for data security purpose
How to get involved
As part of our ongoing coverage on the topic of the public Internet, we have been following the development of hospitality WiFi networks.
In a nutshell, they enable guests to access free WiFi while outside their hotel rooms. Guests can even keep their phones on and use the service if needed (though the latter is not recommended as you will be using your phone’s data plan at a much higher rate).
The concept is simple: customers can access local WiFi in hotels without paying for it, which is way less expensive than paying for a data plan and also allows them to use their devices as needed at no cost. This has got some traction in Asia, but it is still relatively new in North America and Europe, where it has been tested only a few times.
The idea was first proposed in Japan by a hotel chain called Ritz-Carlton that has more than 600 hotels with free WiFi and found that they were able to get up to 40% more guests on those publicly available WiFi networks than they would have gotten had they paid for internet access. The concept could be extended to other areas like airports or public squares and would allow users to share public WiFi with their friends who are also staying nearby.
In addition to hotels and airports, there are several other uses for this technology: you can use it as an emergency backup for your smartphone if you don’t want to pay for data plans (both are especially useful when travelling); it works well as an emergency backup solution; it can be used in non-airport environments where there are no free wireless networks; and finally, this would allow companies (e-commerce sites) to make use of public WiFi without having to invest huge amounts of money in infrastructure or invest time on installing additional routers (which often end up being less than the cost of one device).
To be eligible for free WiFi, you need four things:
1) A physical location (hotel, airport etc.)
2) A physical access point
3) An app that tells you where the WiFi is available outside your room
4) A cloud base management system that provides security to the network
If any one of these three things isn’t present, then you won’t get any free WiFi from your hotel/airport/etc.
Conclusion
We continue to be impressed with the growth and impact of our open source community. Every week, new projects are coming out, apps that we want to play around with, and new applications, services, and companies we want to support.
When a great project comes along, we often take it upon ourselves to try it out ourselves; and those who go through the process are often pleasantly surprised. We were recently reminded of this when we tried out WiFi on our hotel room network. Here’s what we found:
We have several devices connected to the hotel network (and two more in the office) with access to the Internet. Everything is running smoothly, but you can see some issues when you look at our public WiFi.
The problem is that the default WPA2 encryption has a significant security flaw: if an attacker sends a data packet from one device to another device on the network, the attacker may decrypt all data transmitted between them (even if WPA2 encrypts them).
WPA2 was explicitly designed for use in residential environments, but in my experience, most hotels are business-to-business or do not allow guest access at all (which means they can only be accessed via their VPN). The result is that they have no way of identifying who is using their WiFi – either because they don’t allow guest access or because guests don’t pay for it (which means no one wants to pay for it).
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