London Installing Largest Free Wifi Network 158
aesoteric writes "London's Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea districts will be delivered the largest free wi-fi zone in Europe. The plan is to provide the service in time for the 2012 London Olympics, which start in late July, to allow visitors and residents to get more out of their stay."
Read the fine print (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the fine print when you agree to their terms of service.
T-Minus (Score:2, Interesting)
This is going to blow up (in the funny sort of way) when someone downloads CP on this network or harasses some kid on FB. It'd be even crazier if they left it entirely unsecured and someone showed up with firesheep.
Hillarity aside, this could actually drive home the point that an IP address != an identity.
Re:And the existing providers? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was thinking the same thing.
If any city in the US did this the carriers would be SCREAMING SOCIALISM!! ... and funding every politican and their brothers to ban and stop this assault on capitalism at all cost and probably then lobbying congress to add anti free WIFI in SOPA or something stupid.
Maybe in Europe the governments there actually listen to their citizens and not corporate lobbiests and vote only on the behalf of corporations? I was just watching the Star Wars prequel tonight and the US and Canada are starting to look just like the final days of the old republic before it fell to the empire. Inept government totally rotten to the core gave way to many supporting the empire. ... anyway do not want to go offtopic with that rant but thought of it when reading this article pretty much expecting this to be outrageous and political suicide. That is pretty sad if you ask me.
Wireless@SG (Score:5, Interesting)
In Westminster alone, it could be providing internet access to half a million tourists each day, 250,000 residents and 500,000 workers.
Half a million of tourists - would they plan to ask for a "tourist id" for granting access?
They should just ask Singapore how Singapore handles it.
Wireless@SG works in most places I've tried it (Changi Airport, Orchid road). I get the code from the info booth at the airport, valid for 4 hours and wander around Singapore for a bit before my next flight. Handy for long stopovers. A beer in SG is expensive enough, doubly so in an airport (S$13 last time I was there).
The simple way would be registration via an email address, get a code for Wireless@LON for 14 days. Beyond this, SMS codes. seeing as these are captive portals, you regester to have an access code SMS'ed to any UK phone (probably work for any EU phone).