An MIT student reports that the free wifi pilot at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, 'The Cradle of Liberty', uses phrase lists to block public access to many sites on this government-funded network.
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By adamg - 4/22/07 - 9:20 am
Seth Finkelstein just happens to have a copy of the same software used by the city to decide what you get to see on your laptop while connected to the city's WiFi network in Quincy Market. And so he discovers exactly which Boing Boing post got it banned.
You're sitting down, I trust. It's a post about some guy painting a mural about the ocean.
By adamg - 4/5/07 - 10:32 pm
Steve Garfield notes that Dana-Farber now offers free WiFi (so unlike Logan Airport, he adds).
Getting my vote for the unlikeliest place to offer free WiFi: DeNo's Pizza on Centre Street in West Roxbury. Who would ever think to bring a laptop to a pizza place?
By adamg - 12/16/06 - 6:50 pm
Josh Ourisman says the Druid in Inman Square has the best shepherd's pie he's ever had - and free wireless to boot.
By adamg - 12/8/06 - 8:41 am
Sharon Gartenberg cannot believe Framingham is considering spending $1 million to create a downtown wireless zone:
... OK, so we can't afford to replace the terribly inadequate branch library in Saxonville, but we have a million dollars to spend so "Police, fire, public works, and health inspection services personnel all could work away from the office more efficiently with laptops and wireless Internet access"? Um, I don't think so.
By adamg - 11/1/06 - 5:25 pm
CNet: FCC: Boston airport can't block airline's Wi-Fi:
Markj is happy:
... Finally, Boston may get a chance to catch up with all of the other places that have free WiFi at the airport, with no thanks to AssPort. ...
In what is supposed to be a public place, it seems absurd to pay for wireless access, especially in a city that's supposed to be a high-tech leader.
By adamg - 10/16/06 - 10:24 pm
Herald Managing Editor Joe Dwinell checks in from the Quincy Market rotunda, where he files a blog post via the marketplace's free WiFi - and where he learns from a visiting Mayo Clinic physician that the wireless service won't be giving him a brain tumor:
... He has pulled up a seat next to me to blog along. He's also asking about Mitt Romney and how a liberal Massachusetts can elect a Mormon Republican. Checks and balances, I say. ...
By adamg - 10/7/06 - 8:12 pm
John Keith explains why:
... Free and low-cost wireless is available - I use it all the time, at the public libraries in Copley Square and in the South End. Starbucks has monthly plans costing $29.99 and $39.99. The city has also announced plans to install wireless along its "Main Streets."
If there was a demand for wireless access, throughout the city, you can bet that a private company would have already entered the market.
That no one has, shows there is really no interest in this, beyond a few, good-intentioned, but misguided politicians. ...
By adamg - 9/10/06 - 5:32 pm
Sitting on the front porch trying to see if our wireless access point was up, I did a site survey - and discovered somebody on the block now has a wireless network called:
Fuck Off Losers
At least they were smart enough to turn on encryption.
By adamg - 9/7/06 - 7:49 pm
Sooz reports from Richmond:
... I'm a couple hours early for my flight and there's not much to do here at the airport. But guess what? Complimentary wi-fi! It is ridiculous that Comcast (who operates the wi-fi at Logan) won't give customers complimentary access despite all the money they get from us every month for cable services. Though Logan really should just give everyone access to begin with. ...
By adamg - 8/10/06 - 8:11 am
Steve Garfield explains why he's not impressed with the city's recently released proposal for a citywide WiFi network that would include for-profit competition:
... Once we have WiFi all over Boston, I am NOT going to want to pay a daily charge or another monthly charge to get online. ...
By mythicflow - 8/2/06 - 9:00 pm
From a Wired story:
The city is considering an unusual approach to creating a citywide, low-cost wireless Internet network: putting a nonprofit organization, rather than a private service provider, in charge of building and running the system.
A task force on Monday recommended that Mayor Thomas Menino assign an as-yet unidentified nonprofit to raise the $16 million to $20 million in private money that the city estimates it will need to build and begin running the Wi-Fi network.
By adamg - 7/14/06 - 8:44 am
Andrew spots a crew in Roslindale Square making a movie about a girl who runs away from Roslindale for Argentina. Plus, he discusses the difficulties of getting Wi-Fi in the Square.
By adamg - 4/25/06 - 11:26 pm
Tim Murray, running for lieutenant governor, is proposing a new Office of Rail Commissioner to expand rail service in the state, including the installation of wireless access points on commuter-rail trains.
Via Blue Mass. Group.
By adamg - 4/15/06 - 12:15 pm
Mike Mennonno finds himself in a WiFi pickle: His downstairs neighbor suddenly added encryption to her wireless network and he can't use the BPL wireless because of that matter of the outstanding library fines, which means he can't get a library card for the PIN he'd need to use their network:
... So I was stuck. It's Karma, of course. I could tell you the whole story of the card, the books, the fine, but it's very long, and very, very sordid. ...
By adamg - 4/10/06 - 10:09 am
BART, San Francisco's subway system, is looking for vendors to WiFi-enable its trains.
What if the T did that? Of course, this being Boston, you'd probably wind up with doofuses taking up three seats for their laptops and venti grandes - or whacking people in the head as they try to angle their Treos for maximum download speeds.
By adamg - 2/15/06 - 7:56 pm
Boston Unplugged: Mapping a Wireless Future, released today by the Boston Foundation, the Museum of Science and West Roxbury/Jamaica Plain City Councilor John Tobin, explains why they think Boston needs a citywide wireless network:
By dykstraNet - 2/8/06 - 1:53 pm
The Globe is reporting today that Boston is setting up free WiFi throughout the city at a cost that could be as high as $20 Million. Is this a good use of public funds? Do you want the city being your ISP? Are they going to pull some folks off the parking ticket desk at city hall to field tech support calls?
By adamg - 2/2/06 - 5:14 pm
While Boston struggles to build wireless coverage in a select number of neighborhood commercial districts, MIT and Cambridge are looking at blanketing the entire city of Cambridge with WiFi by the end of the year:
By adamg - 1/11/06 - 11:43 am
In a recent Blog Log column, I pointed to John Daley's complaint about the cost of WiFi at Logan Airport. Geoff Kronik of Brookline wrote the following in response:
Mr. Gaffin--my apologies for the length of this message, but I may be able to add to the loganwifi mention I in noted your Globe column recently. I am a frequent business traveler who has been frustrated and enraged by the sorry state of wifi at Logan, have researched it, and have unsuccessfully tried to do something about it.
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