A partnership between free-WiFi providers and a local authority has created a city-wide wireless network for business and government and a lot of free Wifi access in cafes and public spaces around Brighton.
We could do with something like this in Perth/Fremantle. Anybody interested?
Guardian report on the Brighton metranet.
Here I am in the pub. I’ve had to come to the pub to get decent internet acess.
Rural UK is a funny place. The only WiFi network anywhere close to where we are staying in Melksham, Wiltshire is in the local pub, the Forrester’s Arms. So I’m sitting in the local tapping away on the laptop and downloading stuff in the background. And drinking a pint, of course. I guess I’ll survive.
Speaking of survival, we survived, in fact thrived our way through Glastonbury. Friday morning’s rain made a lot of mud, but then it stopped raining and the mud dried up over the next three days. More glastonbury stories coming soon when I get some writing time.
For those watching, we are travelling well and are now planning what we do next in the UK and Europe up until our planned departure for Hong Kong on Sept 2.
Here’s an inspiring story in Wired news about a small company called Delicious Monster that uses a Seattle coffee shop for their offices.
But read on beyond that bit and hear their vision for their Delicious Library software. Today, Delicious Library is software to help you catalog your library of books, DVDs, whatver, and manages borrowing for you. But beyond this, they see your personal library as something you’d share with a community of like minded people. And then with some location awareness, you’ll be able to find out if your neighbour has a copy of that book you are looking for, and maybe borrow it from them. I like it, especially for bring social software to bear on a local issue.
I’ve just created a new blog/website called free wifi freo to provide news and information about the free WiFi hotspot we’ve added to Fremantle’s “Cappuccino Strip”.
For a while, I’ve been answering emails and questions from all sorts of people about the service, and we need to start writing down the answers. Also, I’ll be covering general WA WiFi hotspot news.
And, we can now receive your donations to help with bandwidth, equipment and maintenance costs.
Jack and I set up the free WiFi connection on the cafe strip some weeks ago, but today is the first day I’ve really had a chance to enjoy it. Lib and Bea are down in Albany for the weekend and I’ve got a couple of days of rest to get rid of the lingering cold and rest and sit in the sun.
So, today I’ve walked into Fremantle and have stopped at the Mexican Kitchen for a late lunch and a beer and a really nice plate of vegetable fajitas. I’ve picked a table just inside, but there is an open window next to me, and pulling the laptop out yields and instant, pretty fast internet connection. I like this.
There’s a really solid WiFi connection in the restaurant, so it is a good place for blogging or web browsing over lunch or dinner.
The one thing that Fremantle’s cappuccino strip really needed was good quality wireless internet access.
Now there is. And it is free.
Barking Owl (my company) and Fremantle Technology have got together to create a really usable free WiFi service covering a good part of the cafe strip on South Terrace roughly from Gino’s Cafe to the Capri Restaurant, including Marconi’s, the Dome, Kulcha, etc. Coverage is best at tables outside but is quite usable indoors on the south/west side of the strip.
The service has a series of limits (traffic, bandwidth shaping, some blocked ports) to prevent big downloading and spamming.
Not enough to frustrate or annoy an email or web user, though, who will enjoy ADSL-like performance while sipping coffee of having a meal. As the service is in test at the moment, things may change, but basically it is there to be tested and enjoyed by the laptop and PDA carrying public in Fremantle.
We’ve invested some time and dollars to get things started, and we hope to raise sponsorship to extend and improve the service here in Fremantle.
Please email me with questions, queries or usage reports, and I’ll post more here about the service later.
Oh yes, and the next blogger meetup might have to be in Fremantle!
(And that’s why I’ve been quiet on the blogging front for a bit…. :-)
See this neat wireless backpack repeater. Just amazing what people are doing with the Linksys WRT54G plus custom kernel.
(As seen on slashdot)