Wireless to the people

Wireless has taken an excrutiatingly long time to finally catch on and now that it has it seems like everyone is talking about how it will 'revolutionise' our internet 'experience'. I've had broadband for 6 years and wireless for at least 3 of those years and I will admit that it's really nice to surf the net from the couch but I don't consider it to be liberating and, in fact, quite the opposite, especially when I see people in social situations like a restaurant or a bar pull out their laptop and start surfing. Maybe I'm goofy but I figure that if you're too busy to eat in a restaurant or drink at the pub without surfing you should probably just get take-away and go home. I'm no luddite but I have observed that a few social skills wouldn't hurt most of the people who really can't be without their laptop for more than 5 minutes not to mention it's very distracting when sitting in a pub with some guy typing like mad on the barrail when you just left yours at home to have a pint in computer-free peace. Perhaps segregating surfers from the non surfers like smokers will be a new trend to watch for.

Simon Garfinkel has an interesting column this month titled The Internet Amenity in which he advocates open wireless networks everywhere. He makes a good point that it would be easy, convenient and cheaper without firewalls and restrictions thus forcing people to be more reliant on host based security instead of relying on a firewall alone. However, he claims that it 'costs $x nothing' to supply this service and he loses me since the internet is not free. Machines, routers, people, etc. all of us who make the internet run cost money to someone and, while admittedly opening up your own home base stations for the neighborhood coffee shop isn't going to run ISPs out of business, the collective toll I suspect will have a very negative effect on providers and forcing us into even fewer choices. Securing hosts in an open network is also not a trivial expense for companies and universities considering just how far behind most IT departments are in both skilled staff and savvy users. While I don't disagree with the thought that wireless should be ubiquitous someday I think someone should be asking who is ultimately going to pay for it. This isn't some sort of feelgood wireless love-in Utopia where the homeless are fed because it would be cheaper to feed them than to dispose of the bodies and the wireless made free because it will make surfing from Starbuck's like, you know, totally possible.