mediacrit.com

The expansion of the Internet as a mass medium in the 1990s has been hailed for bringing communication freedom to people.

But, on the technical side, users have always been somewhat tethered. The problem has been a tangle of wires. Wires to connect to the Internet. Wires to connect to printers and other accessories. Wires to network with other computers. It’s not surprising that the magazine that documented the rise of the Internet and new technology is called Wired.

Wired may have to change its name, because the future of the Internet – or at least the point where users connect to it – is increasingly wireless. The reason is Wi-Fi, a standard for short-distance wireless networking, enabling users of notebook computers and other devices to connect to the Internet in cafes, hotels, airports, and parks.

Wi-Fi is not just a technical achievement. It also contains the potential to be the basis for a less expensive, more democratic citizen-based mass communication system.

The origins of Wi-Fi were rather unassuming. In 1985, the federal government opened up three slivers of the electronic spectrum for new uses. One idea envisioned by engineers was for a short-range wireless computer network system, which would save the time and expense of cabling. In 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ project committee 802.11 developed a common wireless standard, which would work across all brands of equipment. (The official standard, named after the engineering committee, is called IEEE 802.11, but it was later given the friendlier sounding Wi-Fi name.)

As it has done with other technology, such as the mouse and the iPod music player, Apple Computer popularized the application. In 1999, Apple began putting Wi-Fi interface cards in its iBook computers, which could then wirelessly communicate up to a few hundred feet from a base station, which is connected to the user’s Internet service. Soon, wireless advocates expanded Wi-Fi service beyond just homes to more public locations, creating Wi-Fi “hotspots” in coffeehouses, hotels, and parks.

What began as a home wireless technology is now heralded as a citizen’s utility. Entire cities are developing Wi-Fi mesh systems—often by attaching Wi-Fi cells to streetlight posts—and enabling citizens with Wi-Fi devices to make free or low-cost seamless Internet connections throughout a municipal area. Throughout the world, and in U.S. cities such as Chaska, Minnesota; Dayton, Ohio; St. Cloud, Florida; Cupertino, California, and Philadelphia, municipal Wi-Fi systems have either been planned or built.

In those locations, Wi-Fi is viewed as an inexpensive and essential utility for the community’s citizens, bridging the digital divide and giving them easy and mobile access to high-speed broadband Internet service. However, some media corporations see municipal Wi-Fi as a threat, because Wi-Fi challenges the almost complete control that the cable industry (via cable modems) and telephone companies (through DSL – digital subscriber lines) have over access to broadband Internet service.

In one of the largest planned municipal Wi-Fi services, Philadelphia is building a 135 square mile hotspot to blanket the city in low-cost wireless Internet service. Verizon, the state’s largest telephone company, balked, arguing that existing commercial broadband providers, such as itself, should control the Wi-Fi business. After heavy lobbying from Verizon, the state of Pennsylvania ultimately passed a law prohibiting Pennsylvania cities from starting their own Wi-Fi networks without giving existing phone or cable broadband providers the first rights to the opportunity. Philadelphia was exempted from the new state law, though, and plans to build its system for less than $10 million by 2006 and charge city residents $16-$20 for monthly Wi-Fi access.

In Cedar Falls, the municipally owned Cedar Falls Utilities isn’t planning a citywide Wi-Fi mesh, but has begun adding public wireless hotspots for its existing CyberNet customers. Since September, hotspots have been active in the Industrial Park and College Hill. In the coming months, the utility plans to offer Wi-Fi hotspots to its customers in the downtown Parkade district in, and later on the busy University Avenue corridor. The city’s public safety officers can also use this service to send and receive reports from these locations.

Where cable is not cost effective, Wi-Fi may also be an economical choice for extending broadband Internet connections to rural customers. In fact, the new WiMax standard (IEEE 802.16 in engineering language), to be deployed beginning in 2006, expands wireless distance coverage from a radius of several hundred feet to up to thirty miles, creating the possibility of community wireless connections for nearly everyone who wants one.