Why doesn't Birmingham have wifi like Austin?

Mar 9

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Why doesn't Birmingham have wifi like Austin?

A conversation with Pete Ashton at SXSW about Birmingham's woefully inadequate and probably very expensive wifi solution, compared to the 'everyone just make their connections free' model that Austin has. It's excellent here - if Birmingham wants to be a 'digital' city it needs to get with the programme.

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about 4 years ago Jonathan Melhuish responded:

Yeah, I've never quite understood why places offer "Free WiFi" but then make it a pain to access. It's probably partly due to technical ignorance and paranoia, but possibly also because they don't want their neighbors using it constantly or people sending spam through it or something, and they don't have any way of monitoring that. I've long wondered whether there'd be a viable business in providing a managed wifi internet service (i.e. cafes etc. host the router, but you monitor abuse, fix problems etc.) funded by advertising in much the way Pete described on his blog - only that it doesn't have to just advertise the place that's hosting the router (they get to draw people in with free bandwidth anyway), but also other businesses nearby.

about 4 years ago Dom responded:

Was the wi-fi free in Austin? Outside of the Hotel and Convention centre I had a fair bit of trouble trying to get access.

I was expecting city wide free wifi but that wasn't the case. Birmingham could change all that as they have a city centre based network - but I doubt they would suddenly make it free.

I wonder what would happen if they did and I mean that from a city wide point of view (not from the individuals).... would the city suddenly attract more online based folks who would relish the ability to use the service at their whim?

It would be a great idea to do so - but I'm sure it would equally be as abused and grind to a halt....

about 4 years ago Christopher responded:

I run a Fon spot at my house :) though it's a little off the beaten path, if you're desperate for wireless just sit in the vicinity of my place. One of my neighbours seems to use it a lot!

The problem individuals have is that they're responsible for traffic through their network, and most ISPs won't let you resell their services / share them out etc etc... I'm sure I'm probably in breach of some stupid part of my ToS by running a Fon spot, though I make no money out of it and do it for fun - and I do wonder exactly what traffic's passing through it at times... Nobody likes to get an injunction or cease an desist served on them!

about 4 years ago stef responded:

Ah - the good thing was that to get onto each of these networks it asked for a signup to some specific terms of service just for that connection, so I think they mitigate some of the legal risk that way.

about 4 years ago Paul Ashton responded:

Just passed through BHX on the way to Africa. BHX has wifi but you have to pay for it. Stupid. Same applied at Paris CDG though Air France do have iMacs in the Business Lounge that you can use for free. A very slight improvement. Compare that to Continental in Houston and Newark where the business lounges have free wifi that you can even access in the corridor outside the entrance!

The experience over the years with hotels charging the earth for telephone calls and now losing all that business to cell phones will also happen to wifi and ethernet connections in public and semi-public spaces. So if the airport and other providers will lose the business at some point in the future they might as well give in today and get a huge boost from increased traffic in other areas. Think of wifi as a "loss leader" which is clearly the case in Austin.

about 4 years ago Dom Barnes responded:

Completely right. Why do we have naff BT OpenZone everywhere. I get free wifi from TheCloud through O2 but why can't we get it everywhere? I would think that such a big city would offer it (Norwich has free wifi now though I haven't tried it)
I've also got a Fon spot up and running in Bearwood. It seems like a good way to get wifi more available to the masses.

about 3 years ago The Case for Free Municipal WiFi | Pete Ashton responded:

[...] telephony companies to get it right, can municipal WiFi be saved? During my recent trip to Austin Stef Lewandowski and I recorded a short podcast about the subject. Based on the rigorous scientific methodology of waving our iPhones around as we [...]

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Why doesn't Birmingham have wifi like Austin?

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