 | austin 3rd most unwired city |
Austin has been ranked third in Intel's survey of "most unwired cities".
This is pretty cool, but I'm kind of amazed by it. After reading of WiFi utopias in other cities where, seemingly, free wireless access points existed everywhere from truck stops to barbershops, and you could get wireless in the forest because the city had a catch-and-release plan whereby deer were implanted with access points and left to roam free, Austin seemed far behind that kind of ideal.
But apparently Austin is pretty close to as good as it gets today. List of Austin free wireless points here.
Austin ROCKS compared to other cities. I can usually find an access point in Austin without too much muss and fuss. Houston and Dallas, not so good. San Antonio? Forget it. I once asked at a coffeehouse in SA if they had wireless Internet, and the barista looked at me as if I'd asked if I could deficate on the bar... confused and upset by that confusion...
Posted by: timbrat on March 5, 2003 02:42 PMThanks for the info. This is really interesting, because I'm trying to work with the City to develop programs to expand wireless access--both for the economic development incentives as well as bridging the digital divide. (And if anybody has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.)
Posted by: Chip on March 6, 2003 12:46 AMDo you think part of the reason behind the high ranking is the amount of coverage on UT? Granted, this isn't open to the public, but its certainly a large, high-profile swath of central Austin covered in Wi-Fi.
Posted by: m4dd4wg on March 6, 2003 08:02 AMThe survey included both "public and commercial" access points, so it would take UT into account. I wish they had published the supporting stats for each city, that would have been very interesting. It should also be noted that the survey wasn't purely about WiFi, it also included cellular WAN access and "internet penetration" whatever that is.
Chip: what about showing the City that we're only third? Just kidding... I guess it depends what kind of programs you're trying for. I think it would be great to see more large, open WiFi hotspots and I think it's a mere matter of time until that happens. Boston's NewburyOpen is an interesting case study. http://www.newburyopen.net/
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