New York To Get Free Wi-Fi Network Via Livery Cabs 86
AndyAndyAndyAndy writes "NYC may finally have a viable plan for free, ad-supported public Wi-Fi service. A company named LimoRes Car & Limo plans to roll out 1,000 cars with transmitters by the fall, and 20,000 by 2011, providing in-car Wi-Fi and externally with a radius of 200 feet. Each car will be able to support up to 16 separate connections. It may be a long shot to say this will provide complete coverage in Manhattan, but if each cab company in New York got onboard... although the brief article notes that the tougher regulation environment for taxicabs means that Wi-Fi won't be coming to Yellow Cabs any time soon."
Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but seriously, educate me: how will someone maintain a connection when the access point is always moving?
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Moving? This is New York City we're talking about.
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So, you will have a fleeting connection as the cab whips by, dropping of a fare outside your $2000 a month NYC hovel...
But is it the Cash Cab? [discovery.com] Free month's rent!!*
* Famous New Yorker Tom Wolfe endorses the use of multiple exclamation marks.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
> No, but seriously, educate me:
Simple enough, you just need to follow the access point with your car. Problem solved !
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, I get to shout:
FOLLOW THAT CAB!
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Assuming it's in enough cars, you could do it with a mesh-network topology. It'd probably require special software on each device to work that way though.
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Except that no wifi drivers support the mesh topography standards.
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Except that no wifi drivers support the mesh topography standards.
That's probably why he said "It'd probably require special software on each device to work that way though". As long as you can create an ad-hoc wireless network you can create a mesh network.
We run an OLSR mesh network in the warehouse and have generally been pleased with the results. As long as each node can see one node down the line anything can communicate with anything else. Our system isn't bandwidth-intensive so we haven't encountered any bottlenecks and there's a plugin for OLSRd that lets you s
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I still see huge problems with this. If you have one car per block, and they are stationary, the mesh idea is pretty good. When I've been in New York, that's not what I've ever seen [google.com]. I wouldn't worry too much about a lack of signal. I'd worry a lot about too many towers in the same place on the same or neighboring frequencies. I'm sure quite a few of us have encountered what happens when you have too many access points on the same channel too close together. Apartment complexes are great for it. I'
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Actually, the congestion issue's not a problem for standard wifi -- just needs to be 802.11a/n in the 5 GHz band, where there's more channels and they're non-overlapping. Uplinks could be WIMAX any day now (from Sprint, probably), and LTE possibly next year or so.
Of course, probably 90% of devices are b/g/n 2.4GHz only, so that's not what'll happen. *sigh*
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Informative)
A livery cab is a cab for point-to-point rental. It is not a yellow taxi cab that you can hail from the curb. It's what you get when someone says, "I've called a car for you. You'll be dropped off at the client's at 10."
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The article did indicate that they wanted to get all the cabs doing it. It would probably work ok initially, but once everyone is doing it, it will become trouble. You can still likely have problems with too many of them together, at such places like the airports and performance venues.
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Yeah, they did briefly mention that. I'd bet by the time they got around to it they'd realize that current networking kit just won't cut that log. Let them try it on this scale and work some issues out. Who knows, the networking industry might just get a jumpstart on equipment for huge mesh networks by following a gradual scale-up of something like this.
Getting all the livery cabs, taxi cabs, buses, and shuttle vans in the city to be hotspots for a 200 foot radius right now with what's available would be a
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Someone did mention that NYC is planning (or doing) wifi and cell repeaters in the subways. I guess time and congestion become factors though. Is it faster to take a cab from Point A to Point B, or go down to the station and wait for the right subway to show up. I've been fond of subways for some trips, but others are just impractical. But, if you get free wifi, it may be an acceptable trade for most.
{sigh} and I'm in an area with no significant mass transit. You *could*
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My town of about 40k has a decent bus system. It runs from about 7 or 8 am to 8 or 9 pm during the week and has a stop within about six blocks of anywhere, but the wait can be a while. The physical accommodations buses will pick you up and drop you off anywhere when they have the capacity available and you're physically disabled. Still, a car or even a bicycle is often more convenient than the non-handicap bus.
Free wifi on the buses here wouldn't make much difference for two reasons. For one, most non-handi
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Actually, no. What you're descrbing is a limo. Livery cabs are point-to-point, but they are not called in advance like a limo service. They are usually gotten at the airport for a ride into town in a somewhat better car than a taxi (at a significant cost premium).
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If you're getting it at the airport without calling ahead, it's because one of the bases for that black car service is at the airport and you're visiting their base in person. You cannot hail it at the curb. The trip must be prearranged. In English, as a matter of fact, "to call" or "to call on" someone meant to visit in person before the telephone was ever invented.
In the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission Rules and Local Laws book, Chapter 6 on For-Hire Vehicles, Section 16 "Conditions of Operation for For
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list of NYC TLC rules just in case anyone's too lazy to search [nyc.gov]
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If you can't keep up with a livery cab, you need to get a faster horse for yourself.
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(For those who missed the joke, it comes in thirds:
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Thanks for proving a negative. Care to update everyone's textbooks now?
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5 bars, 3 bars, offline, 4 bars, 1 bar.... (Score:2)
This makes about as much sense for users as trying to use (stationary) wifi hotpots from a moving vehicle.
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Thats going to be a mess for wifi users everywhere (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, you don't only have to worry about what your neighbors are doing on their wifi. A traffic jam full of taxis in front of your apartment will totally screw your wifi.
Over-wifi. It's a disaster waiting to happen.
You's seen it at Apple and Android announcements. They wifi is to crowded and somebody has to find an ethernet cable.
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A traffic jam full of taxis in front of your apartment will totally screw your wifi.
They wifi is to crowded and somebody has to find an ethernet cable.
SCARY!
A moving WifI.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You missed the point. This is for the people riding inside the taxi. Considering the cost of a vehicle and its upkeep, adding a wireless router is a drop in the bucket. I'd certainly choose the taxi with wifi if it was an option, even for a 10 minute ride. That way I can stay on top of the latest /. stories.
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FTFA:
"It would provide Wi-Fi to people in the cars, as well as those within about 400 feet of the car.
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I am not sure that I understand, isn't it possible to have a huge wireless mesh of L3 roaming AP's? If you had enough of them in one area can't you just jump from between them without dropping your connection at all? If every single car had this, it would make the VoIP cellular phone that switches between free public wifi and the cell carriers towers a viable possibility in bigger cities at least.
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Re:A moving WifI.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"...and you've just gotten the government to subsidize premium wifi for your customers."
There, fixed it for you. The only thing better than getting the government to provide a free service to your customers is to get the government to provide a free service to [b]you[/b] that you turn around and charge your customers $25/hr for. I mean, these are *limos*. . . you don't think people riding around NYC in limos would pay $25/hr for Wifi in the car? More to the point, you don't think the limo companies wouldn't charge them for it?
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Livery cabs can include limos. Livery cabs don't include the Yellow Taxi for which New York is famous. Anything that can be hailed at the curb by a random fair without prearranging the livery (literally the renting of a ride) is not a livery cab. Limos, Town Cars, minivans, or pretty much any vehicle can be a livery cab, and limos are a popular choice.
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I'm sure it's somehow different, but at my college, we have a public wifi all over campus and as you walk around, your connection will get dropped and picked up by several different routers, but you continue to be connected. If you go to a totally dead area, yes it will drop and you'll have to reconnect, but not finding it for a short bit doesn't seem to be a problem. Of course this is a private university paying for large wireless routers that cover larger areas, concentrated in a much smaller area than Manhattan.
Your college will also most likely have more access points in a closer range and have a constant power supply being plugged into a socket. These cabs won't have this option and will cause it to suffer.
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They could do a WDS and have all the access points use the same name.
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Unless they plan on parking the cars a lot, I don't see how this can be useful
Useful for whom?
Because for the passengers of the cab, I reckon it will be useful not to pay the Mobile WiFi while travelling - may make sense during rush hours.
Try again... (Score:1)
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I'm willing to bet the whole farm.
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Well, cabbies were "hacks" long before computers invaded geekspace. Seems to me there's years of experience to draw on.
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WTF Am I gonna do with a barn, in NYC?
Maybe I could convert it into some sort of yuppie antiques shop, or a novelty restaurant. . .
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Forget that. Make the lower level into a parking garage and the upper levels into apartments. You'll make more money there than any shop will. Of course, you'll want to reserve the road facing portions to shops, so they can try to make some money on it.
Or just tear it down, and put up an obnoxiously tall building. :)
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The only part that makes sense is maybe connecting while in the cab during the cab ride. But that's about it as far as I can tell.
so the cab drivers now have to shell out for 3g 4g (Score:2)
so the cab drivers now have to shell out for 3g 4g just like how they have pay the CC fees for the readers.
Unless it's a mesh network, it's useless (Score:2)
Stupid for people outside the car, but (Score:2)
at least it's free wifi for people inside the car. But yea, it's a bit dishonest to call this free public wifi. I'm not sure if slashdot interpreted the article incorrectly or if the company is just really inept and actually thinks thousands of moving wifi APs will create a sustainable public wifi network.
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at least it's free wifi for people inside the car. But yea, it's a bit dishonest to call this free public wifi. I'm not sure if slashdot interpreted the article incorrectly or if the company is just really inept and actually thinks thousands of moving wifi APs will create a sustainable public wifi network.
The article states "It would provide Wi-Fi to people in the cars, as well as those within about 400 feet of the car." Now with it stating that it will provide WiFi to those within 400 feet of the car, it brings to mind the idea of a free public WiFi that could all together cover the entire city. It still is a little dishonest but who is wrong here depends on who felt that mentioning it would transmit a signal 400 feet of the car, it could be either the company or the article writer adding more information h
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Most likely the LCD screen on the back seat or the receipt machine will produce the WPA password. I doubt this company wants to give away its expensive 3G-based broadband to random leeches.
Is it safe for health? (Score:1, Interesting)
Are all these wifi connexions safe for the drivers health when most of the cars equiped with these wifi boosters are parked in the same place?
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When are livery cabs mostly parked in the same place? When the shift is over and they shut the car down? Or are you thinking of yellow taxi cabs rather than livery cabs?
Subways too (Score:2)
16k to infinity (Score:1)
On the other hand, there must be a street level Google maps game in there somewhere.
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Not everyone uses the Internet at all - ever. Hard to believe for us here on Slashdot but there are still plenty of people with no net access either by choice or for financial reasons. Of the people that do use and want internet access, not all of them will be online at one time, and I'd suspect that those people that are will be fairly evenly spread out over the area you are trying to cover with service. You could potentially have hundreds of users on each node, but still far from millions. If it were a tr
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True.
But the resident population of Manhattan Island is 1.63 million. 71,000 per square mile. Commuters and tourists add perhaps 1.3 to 1.5 million more.
There are about 500 miles of roads in a rigorous grid-iron pattern.
How you street level mesh network communicates cross-town through buildings that range from five to one hundred stories in height is another problem.
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You'd only need one router/computer per floor (or every other floor) per dozen users. If every computer that needs net access is also a router, it works. Same with streets on the top down dimension.
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Is this really a good idea? (Score:1, Flamebait)
I'm not so sure that this is a good idea. It's bad enough with cab drivers on their cell phones all the time. It'll be even worse if they're on their laptops and iPads.
Can't really support this... (Score:5, Funny)
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About the RF range... (Score:2)
I don't see this working for anyone inside a building. Especially when a fair percentage of them are taller than the range of the vehicle's WiFi.
On the other hand, I could see people putting repeaters at street level that could boost the signal to/through buildings and surrounding ares. A repeater would be economical too being a one time expense plus a bit of electricity.
BTM
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Typically, the limo waits for the passengers to come out of the restaraunt, bar, etc., so you would have time to log on. It's a start to a free mesh network that we should be working on. I miss the days of the BBS; when I discovered BBSes I cancelled my Compuserve account.
Free? (Score:1)
Apart from the obvious technical issues, like trying to maintain a sensible connection when your access point keeps disappearing - how does this count as free? If you are forced to watch adverts, aren't you paying? In two ways, actually: One is that you are spending your time fighting against unwanted claims at your attention - this makes you less productive. The other way is that the advertisers are paid by companies, who then pass the bill on to the luckless customer who has to buy their products. I'd rat
200 foot limit - 3D concerns (Score:1)
Re:200 foot limit - 3D concerns (Score:4, Informative)
How often do you see livery cabs lined up for fares? Yellow taxis, sure, all the time. I'd bet it's a rare building that has a steady stream of call-ahead, pre-arranged, private rental cars with drivers pulling up. A livery cab isn't a taxi. You can't hail it. A livery cab is codified in NYC law as a "For Hire Vehicle" or "FHV".
You'll get a lot of liveries at JFK or LaGuardia, sure, and maybe at sports stadiums when there's a game. Most of the cabs in the city are taxi cabs, which in NYC are all yellow.
Regulation (Score:1)
They just want to provide wifi for clients (Score:1)
"we will provide wifi to everyone!"
No-one will be able to use the service that drives away from you, but its a nice strategy to "sell" the externalities to the city officials.