February 15

Using Wi-Fi in Madison is like breathing, I do it almost everyday and really have begun to take it for granted. I tend to use the wireless service provided by the UW on a near daily basis. It is a rare occasion for me to be on campus and not have my laptop tucked away in my backpack. Occasionally I will venture onto State Street and jump into a coffee shop to get some work done for a change of pace. Without wireless access my life would be completely different. I can’t imagine not being able to access my e-mail at any given moment.

Through the course of this semester I plan to track my usage of wireless closely. Procuring 15 hours of “fieldwork” won’t be an issue as I imagine that I spend about that much time on the internet (always wirelessly) in a given week. Some of the issues I will be tracking are wireless in private realm, public and university. I know there is a citywide service because I subscribed to it last year but I haven’t paid attention to its development since last November. I would like to discover where hot spots are and find out if there are any holes in the Wi-Fi coverage in the State Street, Capitol and UW campus. I believe that Wi-Fi is one of the most important and influential developments of the past decade so I am excited to learn more about what our city is doing to keep up with the times.

February 22

I’ve located a few web sites devoted to the Mad City Broadband project, which is the citywide Wi-Fi service. Much of the information is at least a year old and although there are statements from the mayor from 2006 claiming its great successes I can’t help but be skeptical. From my experience with the service in October/November 2006, Mad City Broadband is very patchy and was extremely inconsistent. Other cities around the country such as San Francisco, Philedelphia and Chicago have tried similar citywide Wi-Fi networks but have had very limited success and some places have even scratched the projects entirely.

If I had to guess I’d say that WiMax, being developed by Sprint, is going to be the future. A program in Seattle is attempting this technology which promises a wider range and stronger signal than straight Wi-Fi. Imagine being able to check on the latest news, watch a YouTube video or send an e-mail while relaxing on your boat in the Pudget Sound!

Here are the links to some articles from 2005 & 2006 as well as one about the program in Seattle.

Mayor Dave On Wi-Fi Completion: http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/99201

Badger Herald Article: http://badgerherald.com/oped/2005/10/04/wifi_benefits_all_ma.php

Seattle WiMax: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003840373_xohm17.html

February 27

I’ve been paying close attention to the wireless signals that I pick up while I’m on campus or sitting at home and have consistently noticed a weak signal coming from merr.com. When I attempted to connect to it I came to this.

I realized that this was now the Mad City Broadband provider. After doing some research I found that ResTech, the previous top provider of the service, stopped offering Madcity Broadband last May. Now it is only Merr that offers citywide access. You can read about ResTech's decision in this article in the Isthmus [http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=6346]

I think I am going to look into the signal strength of Madcity Broadband from my home, which is supposed to fall within the coverage area.

March 1

I am going to run a 45 day test of the service provided by merr.com. Being the cheapskate that I am I am not going to purchase the service, instead I am going to use my Wi-Fi catcher on my laptop to keep track of the strength of the signal each morning from today until April 15th. My Wi-Fi catcher ranks signal strength in terms of poor, good, and excellent.

Today the signal is poor, which is not surprising considering my negative past experience with Madcity Broadband.

March 3

I just realized that I have yet to make an entry about my Wi-Fi experience on campus... and that is likely because my experience is so good! I have used wireless in dozens of campus buildings this semester already, including but not limited to: Memorial Library, Social Science, Humanities, Villas, College Library, Memorial Library, Psychology, Van Hise and more. I also have been able to pick up the network in-between buildings such as in the library mall and on Bascom. The Wi-Fi coverage on campus seems to be quite extensive.

Check out this link which shows a map of campus and all the buildings which are Wi-Fi enabled.
http://map.wisc.edu/?keyword=wireless

From the looks of it, it seems like there are probably a lot of students living close enough to campus that they'd be able to "steal" Wi-Fi from the campus, lucky them! I have stolen/pirated Wi-Fi all year from my neighbors. I'm not sure whose signal I have been using the only way I am able to identify it is by the network's name, "The Jungle". Over the course of this semester I have already encountered quite a few crazy network names, many of which are hilarious, at the end of the semester I think I might put together a top 5 list of the best ones I've seen.

March 5

After Lecture I decide to walk down Dayton street with my laptop to see how much Wi-Fi pollution there is from the UW buildings, to see if students really could get a signal in their homes. While I sat on a few porches (pretty creepily) I discovered that Dayton Street West of Park Street is filled with Wi-Fi networks leaking from campus. There is an overlap of the networks originating from campus as well as numerous private networks, some of which are unsecured the way that my neighbors is. Bottom line, if you want to connect to the internet in the area of campus, you won't have much trouble.

March 18

so here I am, in Madison, over Spring Break. Joy to the world. Since I don't have many friends in town I saw this as a great opportunity to do something I've been meaning to do all semester. Today I went for a walk around the Capitol and up and down State Street to determine where the wireless networks are. I was surprised by the results.

It turns out that almost the entire area is covered in Wi-Fi, __FREE Wi-Fi__!

Much of the Capitol area is covered by a network called Guest. Acting as a Wi-Fi Bandit
<http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/03/03/2008-03-03_a_wifi_bandit_comes_clean.html> I continue walking all around the area with my laptop. It's impossible to find a place out of coverage. Walking up State Street away from the Capitol I found that the first block of State is not as well covered. From the 100 block all the way up to campus, however, the network is strong.

The best place to find free Wi-Fi is coffee shops. I searched online and found a few sites which listed all of the supposed Wi-Fi locations. Here is a list of some of them, plus the ones that I found during my walk around town.

Ancora Coffee Roasters - 1859 Monroe Street
Applebees Resturant - 660 South Whitney Way
Atlanta Bread Company - Shorewood Hills - 3256 University Avenue
Atlanta Bread Company - N. High Point Rd.
Babe’s American Grill - 5614 Schroeder Rd
Barriques Coffee Trader - 127 West Washington
Blue Mountain Coffee - 5439 University Ave.
Brocach Irish Pub - 7 W Main St
Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar - 529 State St.
Cargo Coffee - 1309 South Park St
Café Montmarte – 127 E. Mifflin
Casa de Lara Mexican Restaurant - 341 State St.
Chocolate Shoppe – 468 State Street
Coffee Gallery - 1865 Northport Dr.
Cool Beans Coffee Cafe - 1748 Eagan Road
Cosi - 250 State St
Culver's Restaurant - 2102 West Beltline Hwy.
Dancing Grounds - 11 North Allen Street
Delitalia - 7854 Mineral Pt Rd.
Electric Earth Cafe - 546 W. Washington Ave -
Espresso Royale Coffee - 208 State Street
EVP Coffee - 1250 E. Washington
Fair Trade Coffee House - 418 State St
Faith Community Bible Church - 3 N. Park Street
Francois Bakery & Cafe - 4429 Milwaukee St
Frida Mexican Grill – 117 Madison
Genna's Cocktail Lounge - 105 W. Main St.
Glass Nickel Pizza Co - 2916 Atwood Ave
Ground Zero Coffee Shop - 744 Williamson St.
Hawk’s – 425 State Street
In the Company of Thieves - 908 E. Johnson
Indie Coffee - 1225 Regent St.
Jamba Juice - 401 State Street
Java Cat - 3918 Monona Dr.
JT Whitney's Pub & Brewery - 674 S. Whitney Way
Laundry 101 - 437 W. Gilman
Madison Aviation - 3606 Corben Ct
Madison Public Library - 201 W. Mifflin
Michelangelo's – 114 State Street
Alicia Ashman Library - 733 N. High Point Rd.
Hawthorne Library - 2707 E. Washington Ave.
Lakeview Library - 2845 N. Sherman Ave.
Meadowridge Library - 5740 Raymond Rd.
Monroe Street Library - 1705 Monroe St.
Orpheum – 216 State Street
Pinney Library - 204 Cottage Grove Rd.
Sequoya Library - 513 S. Midvale Blvd
South Bay Lounge - 5404 Raywood Rd
South Madison Library - 2222 S. Park St.
Meeting Grounds Coffee Shop - 494 Commerce Dr.
Michelangelo's Coffee House - 114 State St -
MoCo Market - 804 Williamson Street
Mother Fool's Coffeehouse - 1101 Williamson St.
Pipefitter’s – 520 State Street
South Bay Lounge and Grill - 5404 Raywood Road
Steep and Brew locations - 544 State Street
Sundance Cinemas 608 - 430 N Midvale Blvd
Urban Market Coffee Shop - 1 Sherman Terrace
The Madison Concourse Hotel - One West Dayton St.

March 27

I just had a thought today about the way that having Wi-Fi everywhere is going to alter our lives. Constantly connected, can't escape. They can track us, we can track them. Always connected. Scary? Yes. Exciting? Of course. Will it turn out to give us freedom or take it away?

April 15

My experiment with Madcity Broadband is complete and here are the results

Days with:

Excellent Reception: 2
Good Reception:5
Poor Reception: 10
No Reception: 28

I think these numbers speak from themselves, Madcity Broadband stinks. I also don't see much need for it when almost all of the downtown area is covered in free Wi-Fi anyways. I don't see Mayor Dave's vision of citywide Wi-Fi increasing economic development actually coming to fruition. If anything the network is sucking away financial resources to could be better spent.

April 22

After spending time in several coffee shops including Fair Trade, Espresso Royale and Starbucks I have learned a few things.

1. People who use computers at coffee shops tend to go alone
2. People who use computers mix between online and off-line
3. People who use computers typically only have 1 drink while they are there

An interesting thing I learned about Starbucks is that it is the only one of the coffee shops that actually charges for Wi-Fi access. Typically it costs 3.99 for 2 hours of access, however, ironically at both Starbucks locations near campus Wi-Fi leaks from surrounding buildings which allows customers to be bandits and use free internet anyways.

April 27

This project has been an interesting look into a newer technology that is definitely permeating all aspects of our lives. Not only were networks found on campus or in restaurants, I also discovered that places like Ragstock, Urban Outfitters and University House had unsecured Wi-Fi network... not to mention the numerous unsecured private networks. Which leads me to my favorite part of doing this project, the 5 best network names.

1. Joel's Bitches
2. My Toe's Smell Because I Stepped In Poo
3. Pimps of Dayton
4. Stop Stealing My Internet
5. The 3 Hottie Boombatties

Without a doubt Wi-Fi has just scratched the surface of its potential. Stay tuned for future news on WiMax.

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