Starbucks Clashes With WiFi Hobbyists Over Airwaves 329
fobbman writes: "Portland Oregon's Pioneer Square (the heart of downtown) has had free WiFi access provided since February by Personal Telco, which is a local group of computer hobbyists. Now Starbuck's is planning on offering the same service on the same band in the same area for $29.95 a month, according to this story in the local fishwrap. Without regulation or licensing, and with WiFi growing, this could become a common problem."
Can't do that? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure that I've seen that somewhere...
Re:Can't do that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course not. Those public free users are obviously Evil Terrorist Commie Content Pirates(tm), and should be kicked off in favor of the Good American Patriotic Capitalist(tm) company!
Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Starbucks has little to do with their WiFi (Score:2, Insightful)
The short of it is, Starbucks has practically nothing to do with TMobile [tmobile.com]'s WiFi access. The managers and employees know next to nothing about the Internet access except for the fact that it exists, and that if customers want to use the access they should call up Tmobile. That's it, so don't jump down Starbucks throat over this.
Why Tmobile can't simply change their channel is beyond me; I imagine that nobody at Tmobile with any technical knowledge has been alerted to this yet.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Stick to the standards (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Problems with Unregulated (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:1, Insightful)
My home based broadband costs less than that.
Re:Common Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, a corporate sponsored setup would have the potential to have a higher speed backbone in and out of the shop, and ultimately be able to provide better service than the free guys.
Not really. T-mobile has hooked up this node (and quite a few others from what I've heard, for cost reasons) to the 'Net with a satellite connection. That means ~400Kbps downstream and horrible latency.
The PTP node on the other hand is directly connected to two almost entirely idle load-balanced T1's.
How does the community group pay for itself? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unregulated is good (Score:2, Insightful)
In cell phones, TV, AM and FM radio -- all regulated markets -- corporations dominate like pavement on a road. Only in the unregulated areas can amateur and non-profit efforts spring up like grass in the cracks. We are better off where there is no recourse mechanism through which corporations can direct their monetary clout to stamp out everyone smaller than them.
In a regulated space, Starbucks would be the least of our worries.
I smell a lawsuit (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, they can inadvertently connect to the Starbucks paid service.
I predict that starbucks will go to the courts about how people are "stealing" their service... It's probably only a matter of time before the lawyers will be on this. If this does end up happening, imagine the precedent. That means no more free WiFi. Although, on the other hand, perhaps Personal Telco could start charging a donation of $5/year or something so they can claim the same from Starbucks customers.
That is very naive (Score:1, Insightful)
Even though Starbucks has no technical knowledge of the service, and don't really do the support, it is a starbucks service. Starbucks has simply outsourced the technical side of the service, so to speak.
You are being very naive to think that if I hire you to do work for me, give you the space to do your work, and only do this because I think your presence will make me money, that I have no interest in what you do, or that I have no culpability in your, mine, or our combined actions.
Re:802.11b supports overlapping networks (Score:5, Insightful)
If it isn't their fault, then whose fault is it?
Re:802.11b supports overlapping networks (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not saying it is right to do since the other group was there first but their policy does make sense.