For those of the geeky variety, and not so, starting today McDonalds open up its WiFi to all comers. Free. With some catches.

Access is free. So general surfing will be available. According to McD’s web page (here) certain services and particular access needs may still require paying for the privilege. But I am fine with that. It is a step in the right direction.

McD’s being altruistic? Not totally. Their heart is in the right place, but their core reason is profit of course. You see McD’s has been in a battle Royale with StarBucks in the morning fast food segment going on 5 years now. Both players have toyed with the idea of going free on WiFi. Fact in some segments I believe StarBucks has already done so. Why do it? Draw customers in. Once they have you inside you might just buy a cup of coffee at a minimum or pop for a whole meal in the best of cases. Least thats the thinking.

This won’t go unnoticed of course. Figure StarBucks to counter across the board very quickly.

The real question becomes does WiFi stay viable for very long? In a strong parallel, WiFi hotspots are the 21st Century equivalent of the pay phone. Useful sure. But you are ‘parked’ till you finish your communications. Yet the growth of smartphones are anathema to that model as the CPE are tied to metrowide cellular/3g/4g services unrelated to specific locale. So WiFi services that McD’s is providing will fade just like the wall payphone at the local tavern did.

In a world swimming in wireless transmissions, how does one operate without it? Cell phone, WiFi, 900mhz phone, the list is endless. So is the FCC, hence the government’s right, to abrogate the 4th Amendment –

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.

“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”

Alarmist? Well maybe. When you consider that the average consumer grade transmitter is running way less than a watt of RF output power, I don’t think you will be breaking the law nor the FCC being after you. The rule that the article points to was in place to go after large wattage stations and CB radios being upjacked to a 1000w linear amp.

But it is a tad troubling on the face. If a FCC guy came to the house asking. I probably would say come on in. I don’t have anything that does high watt RF transmission. But if they started acting like stormtroopers a call to my lawyer would be made long before they left.

Linky.

Beeb is trialing a TV service over Wifi for various smartphones. The theming is similar to that found for its ‘on wire’ service. The number of channels offered is however reduced —

Although still in beta, the Live TV service is designed to let you watch a selection of TV channels, including One, Two and BBC News, live over a Wi-Fi connection. It also supports several radio stations, including Radio 1, 2 and 4.

There’s no need to install any applications prior to watching to any of the channels, just “click and go”, the BBC said.

Currently the service only works over a Wi-Fi connection and broadcasts a 176 x 144 image, but the broadcaster hopes to extend Live TV out to 3G networks and to add more channels during the coming months.

Live TV is thought to work with a selection of smartphones, including the Android G1 and Nokia N Series devices. Register Hardware tried to access Live TV using an iPhone, the service wouldn’t work.

An interesting idea. Though you know if I were a dept head leading a bunch of 20-somethings I might want to have the CIO hand me a wireless traffic report every quarter. Why have someone on staff that is watching the latest on the BBC during work hours?

Linky.

We have covered the woes of StarBucks last year. Well friends you will probably have to find another hot spot again soon. ‘Bucks is closing another 200 stores here in the US. From an internal ‘Bucks memo –

We must also close approximately 300 additional underperforming stores in FY09, about 200 in the U.S. and the remainder in international markets. Of our 167,000 retail partner workforce, we estimate we will reduce approximately 6,000 store positions over the course of the next eight months. As before, we hope to be able to place affected store partners elsewhere in the store organization.

Partners who are displaced will be offered severance packages based on job level and/or years of service.

These decisions have been made to ensure the company is leaner and prepared to endure a worsening economic climate. I can assure you the management team is aware of the impact of these steps on the organization — both those who will depart and those who stay. For those of you who will be departing the organization, I thank you for your contributions to Starbucks and wish you and your families the best during this difficult time.

In the last few weeks we have seen countless companies announce layoffs and some bankruptcies. I point this out to try and put in context that the financial crisis is affecting almost every company around the world. The decisions we make are about preserving the future of Starbucks. And I can promise you that I and the leadership team will do all that we can to put us in a position to emerge strong on the other side of this crisis, and stay true to our values and culture.

Want to know a choice one? ‘Bucks took delivery of a new (like in only 12 landings so far) corporate jet. They are now trying to sell it. Worse they have not been able to unload the old one either. Doesn’t that just roast ya?

Linky.

BART, the rapid transit system in the San Fran bay area will have a fully deployed WiFi system by 2011. This according to Wi-Fi Rail that just signed a 20 year contract with the system –

BART, the San Francisco Bay Area’s commuter railway, plans to offer Wi-Fi access on all trains and at all stations by 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

The 20-year deal, signed Friday with start-up Wi-Fi Rail, is set to bring high-speed wireless access to BART’s 104 miles of track and 43 stations. The network is based on a “huge fiber-optic backbone,” according to Wi-Fi Rail.

BART, short for Bay Area Rapid Transit, has been testing the service for about a year in underground sections in San Francisco and on about two miles of open track in Hayward. More than 16,000 people signed up for the pilot service, which has been free, the Chronicle said. Wi-Fi Rail plans to charge $30 per month once the service is fully installed. Other subscription plans, based on hourly, daily, or annual use, will also be available.

I have only two questions. A) I hope that the State is making a little money on this as they are already $41Bn in the hole. B) Who lives on these trains that it would make sense at $30/month? Unless you have to have a hour commute by rail this is pretty pricing WiFi.

Linky.

Well at least according to United it is. That will be the cost of WiFi access while you are in their metal tube. Would you consider that a valid price for what at most is 4-6 hours of use? –

Some friendly skies are about to become a Wi-Fi hot spot.

Passengers on selected transcontinental United Airlines flights soon will be able to check e-mail and surf the Web via their Wi-Fi-enabled laptops, BlackBerries and iPhones.

On Wednesday, United is expected to unveil plans to roll out its first broadband offering during the second half of this year. The project will involve 13 Boeing 757 jets used for p.s., the Chicago-based carrier’s premium service for business travelers who trek from New York City to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Like Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, which previously announced airborne Internet connections, United plans to deploy the Gogo Inflight Internet service created by Itasca-based Aircell LLC. It uses a cellular data network, beamed into the skies from a series of towers, to provide Wi-Fi service at download speeds similar to what passengers have at home.

What do you think? Is that a rate that would interest you?

Linky.

I will believe it after the dust settles but the conventional wisdom is being biased a bit. According to ‘those in the know’ Universal will not be the watch word for broadband expansion —

A top tech member of the Obama transition team today said the broadband component of the increasingly contentious economic stimulus package in Congress is not designed to completely meet the president-elect’s overarching goal of increasing the availability of high-speed Internet connections — in part through wireless technology — throughout the country.

“Don’t confuse a piece of the puzzle with the puzzle,” said Blair Levin, a former Federal Communications Commission official who is on leave from his telecom analyst job at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.

Now a lot can be read into that statement. But if Universality is off the table then that is certainly an improvement over the current thinking. Here’s the reason why.

Anyone who knows anything about the early days of airline development, none of the budding airlines were making a profit without the US Postal subsidy. Well that was fine for the major cities — LA, NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston where the mails offered contracts on those critical routes. But it crippled those same airlines into branching out into second tier cities of the time. Fact from the period 1915 to 1930 aircraft design was influenced by the postal subsidies as well. Not till the arrival of the DC-3 could an airline book enough passengers to make a paying flight without the subsidy.

Well if we are not careful the same could happen in wireless. Fact it already has. NYC which had WiFi coverage in all its parks till the contract was not renewed and the provider could not make it on its own. Let us be succinct. Wireless may very well be the citizenry’s primary tool to summon first responder action. We The People should be secure in the fact that our national nervous system is robust enough to be supported by the user pays model. Only then may we be sure to be secure in our persons, places and things.

Linky.

Central Park and other parks in NYC are now without WiFi. The provider lacking an extension of their contract with the NYC Parks Dept can’t go it alone –

Logging onto the Internet for free at many New York City parks has become another casualty of the financial crisis.

The vendor, WiFi Salon, which won the contract from the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation in 2004 to wire 10 parks in four boroughs, including Central Park, quietly shutdown in October due to lack of financing and is in the process of removing equipment. The contract expired Sept. 30, and it wasn’t financially feasible for WiFi Salon to continue on its own.

This of course is where the Google biz model should have kicked in to bridge such issues. Had Google been serious about 700mhz this kind of model might have been able to assist here.

Linky.

The folks in the town of Glastonbury, England have received a new WiFi network. Think they are happy about this turn of events? Evidently not. –

Ever since the town’s free municipal wireless broadband network went online in May, people have been complaining of, as an online petition puts it, “headaches, dizziness, nausea, severe tiredness, brain fog, disorientation and loss of appetite, loss of balance, inability to concentrate, loss of creativity” — all ailments an examining physician would find it difficult to prove or disprove.

“This place is not appropriate for a Wi-Fi trial,” resident Linda Taylor tells the local Fosse Way magazine. “People are complaining of headaches, tingling skin among other symptoms. This makes me wonder what is it doing to the children.”

Thought by many to be the burial place of the mythic King Arthur, Glastonbury’s year-round population of 9,000 swells to about 150,000 every June when the mammoth Glastonbury Festival three-day rock concert occupies a nearby field. “I don’t want my son exposed to risk 24 hours a day, including at his primary school, which is within the Wi-Fi zone,” yoga teacher Natalie Fee tells London’s Telegraph. “I would be failing in my duty as a parent if I did.”

One man has even begun making orgone generators, which use crystals, semi-precious stones and gold to purportedly put out positive energy to combat the negative vibes flooding the town from the Wi-Fi base stations.

Seriously, I guess they don’t use electricity and cell phones in this town either. At the RF densities that the typical WiFi transceiver puts out you might as well ignore it. It would be interesting to poll these same people to see how many of them have microwaves in their homes. What’s worse, these folks might disprove the William Buckley Jr. saw — “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. ”

[To our US readers. Don't be too smug. I can take you to towns in California just as looned out.]

Linky.
HT: Ace of Spades

Thomas Jefferson would be very proud of the FCC tonight, and Dr Dog predicted this one correctly.  Some of the spectrum that belongs to all of us is being returned to all of us to use as we see fit with some limits. All five votes were for opening white spaces for use by low power unlicensed devices. This is significant because even low power transceivers perform very well in the 700MHz band. Not only will this enable “WiFi on steroids”, it could make for an additional wireless pipe.

Denying a tremendous last-minute lobbying effort by broadcasters, the vote on white space devices went ahead as planned today after a several-hour delay at FCC headquarters. When the vote came, though, it was unanimous. For the Democrats on the Commission, the devices are appealing because they offer a potential new avenue for broadband services, while the Republicans are pleased for the same reasons, but love the fact that this is a deregulatory order that focuses on less regulation and more competition.

Robert McDowell praised the “prudent and cautious Order” adopted by the FCC, saying that it would unleash “entrepreneurial brilliance” in the US wireless market.(Ars Technica)

The FCC also voted to approve the Sprint / Clearwire WiMAX and the Verizon / Alltel mergers. I doubt Mr Jefferson would approve of how much of the public spectrum Verizon is being allowed to control.