The Economist reports on the WiFi panel I chaired at PC Forum, ang gets all the details wrong (I used to live near Hwy 101, I saw the occassional commuter checking mail, and no one has ever reported real world example of making "a free [wireless] network available to everyone… some people will abuse it to hog bandwidth or send junk e-mail." It's amazing what a bogey-man that is for suits from the mainstream press — "People will hog your bandwidth! The sky is falling! You'll be used as a jumping-off point for hackers!" Blah-dee blah blah blah. The love song of a journalist in the throes of a technophobic panic!)
The bottom-up approach has problems too. Enthusiasts are building free networks in cities around the world. Stick a Wi-Fi antenna on your roof, enter your location as a "hotspot" in an online Wi-Fi directory, and passers-by can use your Internet connection. At PC Forum, a recent industry conference, Cory Doctorow, a Wi-Fi enthusiast who lives near Silicon Valley's Highway 101, reported a regular stream of cars pulling up outside his house as itinerant workers stop to check their e-mail. But this co-operative approach tends to break down when a technology goes mainstream. Make a free network available to everyone, and some people will abuse it to hog bandwidth or send junk e-mail.
Link (don't bother clicking, you'll have to pay the Economist $3 to read the story, and it's not worth it)
(Thanks, Bill!)
