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Steve Jobs' Vision of Widespread Free Public Wi-Fi Guest Networks Yet to Take Hold
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I'm ready to 'jump down your throat and rip you a new one' because you obviously, and like so many uninformed Americans, have no clue what 'socialism' really is.
socialism |ˈsōSHəˌlizəm|
noun
a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism.
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of
capitalism and the realization of communism.
The term socialism has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state communism, and social democracy; however, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammeled workings of the economic market.The socialist parties that have arisen in most European countries from the late 19th century have generally tended toward social democracy.
noun
a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism.
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of
capitalism and the realization of communism.
The term socialism has been used to describe positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state communism, and social democracy; however, it necessarily implies an opposition to the untrammeled workings of the economic market.The socialist parties that have arisen in most European countries from the late 19th century have generally tended toward social democracy.
Where a closer description for what we have in this country is probably: "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor"
So, If Obama came to your house and told you that you will open your wireless network up to ALL people, that would be socialism.
Back to the subject: I don't know why parks and highway rest stops aren't all setup to supply wifi... It makes sense.
Heck, I'm still dumbfounded that more stores don't provide free wifi.
How many times have you been shopping and wanted to either research an item, or send a picture to 'the boss' to get approval. It would seem that it would make more money rather than cost money. They already have the internet. Properly setup, with VLAN's and firewalls, the security issue could easily be mitigated...
Yeah, there's always *someone* that will come along and wreck it for everyone else. But if the MAC addresses were logged along with the IP, it would make hunting down the guilty easier somewhat... Yeah, I know that some devices allow the spoofing of MAC addresses, then perhaps digging deeper would work, but...
Comcast has apparently been rolling out a similar system. It's a completely separate network which in theory shouldn't even affect your bandwidth because they allot bandwidth independent of your connection (the pipe is already bigger than your purchased bandwidth). I'll grab an article about it at random for convenience.
Good idea, but it won't work. Security, bandwidth hogging.
The Telco I work for has added free wifi to all of the phone boxes in my country. If the user is with that Telco and has a mobile plan, its free, 1GB per day. If not, its $10 per month. Add more access points and no reason why vast coverage at very low cost cannot happen
The Telco I work for has added free wifi to all of the phone boxes in my country. If the user is with that Telco and has a mobile plan, its free, 1GB per day. If not, its $10 per month. Add more access points and no reason why vast coverage at very low cost cannot happen
For this to work, the following has to be standardized and accepted.
1) The guest wireless network SSID must be standardized and broadcasted.
ie "Guest Network". This will allow a user to roam without disconnects if the next AP is within range.
2) The guest wireless network must be completely segregated from the private home network. In no way, shape, or form can anyone hack or alter the guest network to access private data. It must be 100% walled off.
3) The guest wireless network must be configurable by a user. At minimum, the following options need to be made available:
a) Limit Download Speed to: xx.xx Kb/Mb/Gb
b) Limit Upload Speed to: xx.xx Kb/Mb/Gb
c) Use 100% bandwidth when private network is not in use: yes/no
d) Limit the amount of concurrent connections: 5, 10, 25, 50, 100
4) The ISP must report guest wireless network usage separate from private home usage. The guest network does not count for private usage.
5) The guest wireless network must be maintained by a central authority - meaning - a person must agree to the terms of service provided by the wireless guest network authority. An account must be created to login to this account. Limited usage is shared with the ISP. Shared usage would consist of an account ID and amount of data consumed in a month. The ISP can restrict further usage from their network.
6) The federal/state/local governments can not hold private user accountable for activity performed on guest network.
7) For a guest user to login, an ISP must report to the central authority that a paid account exist (be it Comcast, TWC, AT&T, TMobile, etc). When account is closed or not paid after 60 days, the ISP reports to the central authority that the user does not have further access. This prevents people from getting "free wifi" in the sense they don't ever have to pay.
8) Routers are powerful enough to handle this workload/processing/check.
This is the only way I see this working successfully. Otherwise, we can all dream.
1) The guest wireless network SSID must be standardized and broadcasted.
ie "Guest Network". This will allow a user to roam without disconnects if the next AP is within range.
2) The guest wireless network must be completely segregated from the private home network. In no way, shape, or form can anyone hack or alter the guest network to access private data. It must be 100% walled off.
3) The guest wireless network must be configurable by a user. At minimum, the following options need to be made available:
a) Limit Download Speed to: xx.xx Kb/Mb/Gb
b) Limit Upload Speed to: xx.xx Kb/Mb/Gb
c) Use 100% bandwidth when private network is not in use: yes/no
d) Limit the amount of concurrent connections: 5, 10, 25, 50, 100
4) The ISP must report guest wireless network usage separate from private home usage. The guest network does not count for private usage.
5) The guest wireless network must be maintained by a central authority - meaning - a person must agree to the terms of service provided by the wireless guest network authority. An account must be created to login to this account. Limited usage is shared with the ISP. Shared usage would consist of an account ID and amount of data consumed in a month. The ISP can restrict further usage from their network.
6) The federal/state/local governments can not hold private user accountable for activity performed on guest network.
7) For a guest user to login, an ISP must report to the central authority that a paid account exist (be it Comcast, TWC, AT&T, TMobile, etc). When account is closed or not paid after 60 days, the ISP reports to the central authority that the user does not have further access. This prevents people from getting "free wifi" in the sense they don't ever have to pay.
8) Routers are powerful enough to handle this workload/processing/check.
This is the only way I see this working successfully. Otherwise, we can all dream.
There are a few ISPs that actually have this set up already on an opt-out basis. Since it is a completely separate login (account from ISP) and network. Any child porn or related offenses would be extremely easy to trace.
You know...unless someone steals your login. But that's really a completely different issue.
Having my IP address banned because people are abusing it at least isn't a security problem for me, but it's a different kind of problem. There's no possibility of them doing things to my LAN, as some might think. That is, in the hypothetical/fantasy situation where I'd have a guest wifi network.
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A simplified solution
T think its is a great idea, a simplified solution to the problem of bandwidth hogging can be solved if users will have a unique kind 'id' through which once they the host wifi should be credited the used amount of bandwidth from the users account. So that no body loses. Its a win win.
T think its is a great idea, a simplified solution to the problem of bandwidth hogging can be solved if users will have a unique kind 'id' through which once they the host wifi should be credited the used amount of bandwidth from the users account. So that no body loses. Its a win win.
It's still a security problem. A different kind of security to them getting into your local network, but still a security issue none the less, not to mention a privacy issue. The word "security" isn't limited to simply being able to access your own private LAN. It also includes what you described.
2) is handled by the security of the modem/router. As far as I know the guest networks in Airport routers have zero access to other networks and can easily be configured to disallow guests from even connecting to other guests. Whether there are exploits has yet to be seen, but if they are on different networks I doubt this would be easy (or even possible).
3) may be configurable depending on modem/router, the bandwidth available to the modem is often much greater than the bandwidth actually purchased by the customer (i.e., it isn't actually shared bandwidth).
4), 5), 6) are all being handled by some ISPs already. For instance, if you have Comcast you can already log into guest networks in other customers' modems that support it (it's opt-out and limited to modems that support wifi). Presumably 7) would be handled more/less in this way, but it is really up to the ISP's billing department to keep track of and is of little interest to us here.
There is no answer to 1) yet that I'm aware of (operating much like cell towers operate). But there would also have to be enough wifi points available to make it even practical to rely on. Additionally, 8) may be an issue with older modems/routers who can barely handle the network as it is. However, it would only be implemented with compatible modems so this issue would likely never be a problem (unless your shiny 2014 model modem/router is actually broken or something). And like 7), it is really more of an internal thing for the ISP to figure out.
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It would be trivial to have guest network set up on a separate IP address if it is built into the modem. The only potential issue is the limited number of IP v4 addresses, which would be less of an issue if more websites supported IP v6 (although tunneling would make this much less of an issue, but I don't know if you can tunnel v4 over v6my knowledge of this is more limited, so don't quote me on it).
Been happening in the UK for years. BT the UK's largest Telco reserve part of each customers bandwidth via their routers in order to boost wifi for mobile hotspots.
Think our American friends are missing this.
The "Free" network is completely different. Your personal connection is completely secure and behind security. Your main connection is not open.
Too much cost, tech requirement, Govt involvement, ISP involvement. See my previous post for what we started in NZ
The closest thing - in the UK at least
The closest thing I've come across is https://www.btfon.com in the UK, you have to be a paying BT customer but it is really rather useful when travelling I've found.
The idea had real potential the execution far from perfect.
The closest thing I've come across is https://www.btfon.com in the UK, you have to be a paying BT customer but it is really rather useful when travelling I've found.
The idea had real potential the execution far from perfect.
I found this service pretty neat when it was introduced by the Dutch provider Ziggo. The provider takes care of everything: security and isolation of the guest network, bandwidth, data limits. They even increased the bandwidth for all home networks with an amount equal to the bandwidth they imposed on guest networks, as compensation. The bottom line is that you will never notice the existence of that guest network, it shouldn’t affect your own speed and it is completely isolated from your home network, barring security or liability concerns.
But it’s rewarding; it creates a certain solidarity and turns WiFi into a public utility.
Ziggo tackled this by giving home networks some extra bandwidth as compensation while limiting the bandwidth of guest networks. Providers almost always throttle the bandwidth anyway, especially if it’s a selling point.
But it’s rewarding; it creates a certain solidarity and turns WiFi into a public utility.
Ziggo tackled this by giving home networks some extra bandwidth as compensation while limiting the bandwidth of guest networks. Providers almost always throttle the bandwidth anyway, especially if it’s a selling point.
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It exists, works and is very common here in France.
The principle is quite simple: most ISP modems create a second "open" wifi network. But to connect to this network, you need to use the credentials from your ISP. So you are totally identified when you connect (this is for adressing worries of someone talking about child porn in the beginning) - this is not just an unsecured open network where you can just go and do anything anonymously.
Also, what makes it work (because of course, you can disable it, but lots of people don't) is that (at least for one of the biggest ISP here) if you want to be able to use your credentials, you need to have your "public wifi" ON at home.
Only unused bandwith is given to the public wifi.
Also, there is an ISP here that is both Internet ISP and mobile phone provider that included auto connect to their simcard. So if you have a compatible phone with the wifi turned on, it will automatically connect AND login to this public wifi in a totally seaming less way (I think it's called EAP SIM)
The principle is quite simple: most ISP modems create a second "open" wifi network. But to connect to this network, you need to use the credentials from your ISP. So you are totally identified when you connect (this is for adressing worries of someone talking about child porn in the beginning) - this is not just an unsecured open network where you can just go and do anything anonymously.
Also, what makes it work (because of course, you can disable it, but lots of people don't) is that (at least for one of the biggest ISP here) if you want to be able to use your credentials, you need to have your "public wifi" ON at home.
Only unused bandwith is given to the public wifi.
Also, there is an ISP here that is both Internet ISP and mobile phone provider that included auto connect to their simcard. So if you have a compatible phone with the wifi turned on, it will automatically connect AND login to this public wifi in a totally seaming less way (I think it's called EAP SIM)
And yet... he wouldn't even give free WiFi to Cupertino in return for getting approval to rebuild his headquarters.
In the meantime, companies like Google give free WiFi to neighborhoods and even cities around them, and experiment with ways to bring WiFi to even rural areas via balloons.
In the meantime, companies like Google give free WiFi to neighborhoods and even cities around them, and experiment with ways to bring WiFi to even rural areas via balloons.
Google is in the business of collecting data..of course they give free wifi. Not like theyre not benefiting from it. You didnt think theyre doing it to be nice did you?
Its all about the assimilation.
It is slowly happening
Although not the same as what Steve Jobs was suggesting, there are quite a few places in the world that provide free wifi access on a huge scale.
I agree that using your own data may be a better solution when within your own country and therefore coverage by your own service provider, but when you are travelling free wifi becomes an essential tool.
Cities like Adelaide, South Australia provide a free wifi service all over the city so tourists can have easy access without being ripped off by hotels / data roaming charges.
http://www.adelaidefreewifi.com.au
Although not the same as what Steve Jobs was suggesting, there are quite a few places in the world that provide free wifi access on a huge scale.
I agree that using your own data may be a better solution when within your own country and therefore coverage by your own service provider, but when you are travelling free wifi becomes an essential tool.
Cities like Adelaide, South Australia provide a free wifi service all over the city so tourists can have easy access without being ripped off by hotels / data roaming charges.
http://www.adelaidefreewifi.com.au