City unplugged
How wireless technology could make Manchester a better place to live

By Judah Pollack and Dan J. Szczesny
HippoPress.com

Travis Roy and Mike Spenard are sitting on overstuffed leather couches imagining the future.

The 26-year-old founders of ManchesterWireless.org envision people unplugging the cables from their computers. They imagine people surfing the Web while waiting for a concert to start in Singer Park. They imagine Manchester untethered.

Roy tries to explain. He's online in his apartment near the Elliot Hospital, a notebook computer on his lap. He's IMing, or instant messaging, with a friend as he talks. There's not a wire in sight. "Let's say people are sitting outside at a cafe..."
"Or in a park..." Spenard interjects. They tend to step on each other's thoughts.

"...And they decide to go to a movie," Roy continues. "They just open their laptop and check what's playing. Then they can IM a friend to see if they want to go. They can check reviews, check times, order tickets and they're outside in the park."

"I thought they were in a cafe," Spenard says. Roy flips him the bird.

These two have been working together for six months to create something Manchester has never seen before. ManchesterWireless.org is not a company. It is a community-based project. Private companies are motivated by profit-they sell a service or product. Spenard and Roy, on the other hand, are giving away a portion of their DSL Internet feed for free to whoever wants to join the project. They say they are motivated by the desire to make Manchester a better place to live and by an ethos that goes back to the very first days of the World Wide Web.

Such community-based projects exist across the globe. In the U.S., from Pittsburgh to Palo Alto, there are at least 75 projects to build free and open networks. To the south, there are several Boston-based projects, including the Boston area Wireless Internet Alliance, a loose group of area network
operators.

In New Hampshire, Dartmouth College is wireless. That's about it, and that puts the state behind the curve.

There are now about 40 million wireless Internet, or Wi-Fi users, according to a recent New York Times articles, and analysts suggest that commercial services will complement, not compete with, free services like Manchester Wireless that are emerging.

In a recent economic development study by Intown Manchester, public wireless access was named as one of the things lacking in Manchester. Supporters insist that a Wi-Fi Manchester would put the city on the technology map, drawing more tech-based businesses and workers to the city.
"It would position the city with regards to the high tech sector, software community and younger people," says Ross Gittell, a professor at the UNH's Whittemore School of Business and Economics who worked on the study. "It would make Manchester a cool place to be."

The Manchester Wireless boys agree. But while they may be the local pioneers in trying to unplug the city, they'll need partners to take us into the future. That's the "community" in the idea of the community-based project-it's going to take more than two 20-somethings to make the city wireless.
What is wireless?

The wireless world became possible when the FCC began assigning part of the electromagnetic spectrum for certain license-free purposes. These frequencies are commonly known as bands. The military claimed its own bandwidth, and the bandwidth at 2.4 Gigahertz was marked as free for industry, science and medicine.

This is where you will find Manchester Wireless and other free or subsidized communities.

In New York City, NYCWireless.net has set up the kind of "community-project" ManchesterWireless.org would like to see created. Here's how it works in New York: A volunteer group of people or businesses use their own equipment and radio communications to gain Internet access to mobile computers and personal desktops with connection cables. There were nearly 170 of these so called "hotspots" around Manhattan at last count.

In San Francisco, companies are sponsoring different geographic areas to put together a wireless puzzle of sorts that covers a larger area. These services are free, with the companies benefiting from the advertising or buzz the hotspots generate, Gitell says.

The reason so many hotspots are needed, particularly in a city like New York, or even Manchester, is that wireless networks don't like tall buildings and large hills. They block the signal, making it difficult to use wireless technology from one valley to another, whether a building or hill stands in the way. Right now Manchester Wireless offers service in an area the shape of a triangle, from the Elliot Hospital, to the Holiday Inn on Elm Street, to the New Hampshire Insurance building and parts of the West Side. Obstacles mean that coverage within that triangle is spotty.

"This would work easy if we lived in Nebraska," Spenard says. "It's so flat our signal could go until the earth curved."
But Manchester is not flat. That's why Spenard and Roy are looking for someone who lives on top of a hill to sign up. They could use an antenna to jump over the hill and expand the network into north Manchester.

"If we found the right house we'd donate the equipment," Mike says.

Does this mean if you sign up with them, Internet access is free? Almost.

What do you need, how do you get it?

All you need to get Wi-Fi is an 802.11b network interface card in your laptop and you can have free access to the Manchester Wireless network anywhere within their range. (Some high-end laptops and hand held computers come with 802.11b already integrated in the system.) The card costs around $50 and allows your computer to talk with other computers within the wireless network.

That is, so long as you are outdoors and have signed up with them for an account at no charge. (At press time, the sign-up link on ManchesterWireles.org was broken.)

If you want free wireless at DSL speed inside your home, there are two other pieces of equipment you will need. First is the antenna. The average antenna is about two feet long and an inch and a half wide, a narrow aluminum pole with short, metal rods crossing it horizontally. You can place it on the side of your window frame and it disappears. Second, there is the access point or radio. These are ½-inch by ½-inch boxes and serve as translators. They receive the signal from the antenna and translate it into an understandable language for the Ethernet card. The company Mike founded and still works for, Signull.com, manufactures the antennas. But they say you are welcome to buy the equipment on eBay. Depending on the power of your items, the gear can cost anywhere from $200 to $400.

That's not free, you say.

True, but at $50 a month for comparable DSL service, the whole thing pays for itself within four to eight months.
Besides Manchester Wireless, options for free wireless are slim.

Ross Gittell would like to see businesses step up and sponsor hotspots, or at least provide antennas for groups like Manchester Wireless.

"Between Elm and Commercial streets we have a pretty
defined downtown,"he says. "It could be a real attraction for a company, maybe put Manchester on the map a little more."
It's unlikely, however, that any corporation is going to set up free hotspots in Manchester in the near future.

Verizon Wireless certainly won't be. According to J. Abra Degbor, the spokesperson for Verizon Wireless of New England, the company's strategy is to expand its Express Network service, a subscriber cell phone service that is a competing technology.

"We're just not gung-ho on Wi-Fi (wireless Internet) as we feel we have a service that is comparable that serves a wider network," she says. "We feel our concentration should be on our network."

Subscribing for wireless service can cost anywhere between $35 to $300 per month. Degbor says the service is comparable to speeds "close to what people could get (dialing up) at home."

There are a couple choices in Manchester for people who want wireless access outside their home.

The cafe Fusion on Elm Street currently provides free wireless access to customers. Fusion owner Carlos Pineda says that he sees between 10 and 15 users of the service every day, and the number is growing.

Pineda offers the service free. For now.

He's devising a credit system that would require people to purchase credits to log on.

Down the street at Ahh-Some Gourmet Coffee, owner Jose Neives offers customers with their own laptops free wireless service. If you want to use one of his computers, it'll cost $6.96 an hour.

He says that the service is not a moneymaker, just a convenience to his business customers. He doesn't plan on expanding the service, but he says he won't start charging for it either.

But it's unlikely that having to pay for using the service would dissuade many people from using it.

Lori Cline, a U.S. Airways employee, made her first trip to Fusion last week on a layover. She was staying at the Holiday Inn down the street when she asked the clerk where their Internet access terminal was.

"She just laughed at me," Cline says.

The Holiday Inn, like many hotels in the city, offers the Internet to guests with their own laptops. But if you don't have one, you need to find someplace that does.

Cline, who lives in Greenboro, S.C., says that it's been her experience that most hotels around the country in even small cities offer some type of terminal for Web service. And even if she finds herself in a hotel without one, Internet cafes are becoming common enough to find pretty easily.

"I don't know how anyone can get by without having access," she says.

To the credit of the hotel clerk, she suggested Cline walk down the street to Fusion. Cline says she was excited to see the service was free, but would have been willing to pay a few bucks to sign on.

As wireless becomes more popular, some industry insiders feel it's going to be less likely that people will be able to find it for free.

"The free concept always works at the beginning of any technology," says Sam Talari, the vice president of sales at Hathaway Corporation in the Millyard. "But nobody does free wireless anymore because the business model doesn't work."

Of course, Talari has a stake in the Wi-Fi game. Hathaway launched WiFinity Networks four months ago, a wireless provider that services mainly businesses or large venues like airports or hotels. Talari says that WiFinity has no clients in the city yet, but is in talks with several hotels.

"We'll be covering all of New England," he says. "Usually New England has been underserved, but the market is so vast here, the opportunity is quite good."

WiFinity is essentially a wireless middleman. They will either set up a company with a server to manage its own wireless "hotpots" or manage it for them, for a price. Talari says that WiFinity requires that a company or venue qualify by being able to provide a minimum number of users, usually at least 100.

As for the free hotspot concept, Talari says that somebody would have to profit to make it work. For example, he says that WiFinity could sell wireless service to a city government, who could turn around a portion that service out to departments, businesses or residents.

"It would be up to the city on who to charge," he says.

Something for nothing

So, in an atmosphere of making money off wireless, the question persists, why? Why would ManchesterWireless-or the volunteers in New York or Seattle-foot the bill for a DSL connection and then offer it to everyone else for free?

"We want people that want to contribute and work on something with others in the area," Spenard says. "To feel a part of something."

And if you help them out, you just might be able to say you were there first. Because as of today, no one has signed on to the Manchester Wireless project, but the wireless boys say that's simply because of lack of exposure and understanding.
Of course, if too many people join Manchester Wireless the network will slow down. The idea is that as the network grows, others will contribute by offering their DSL feeds for free-like the volunteers in New York-to anyone on the network.

Spenard and Roy both work for tech companies, and both say they are not trying to profit from Manchester Wireless.

"Building up Manchester Wireless helps us develop skills we both use in our jobs," says Roy.

"The idea isn't to make money," Spenard says.

"No," Roy says. "It's to bring people together, give people something constructive to do."

They are appealing to the better instincts within people. There used to be a hope that the Internet would tear down the status quo. Roy and Spenard like that idea. They envision a Manchester brought together by technology-a wireless city that's a friendlier and better place to live.

Going wireless

If you want to go wireless on a street
corner in Manchester, here's what you'll need:

1) Something to make use of network access

A mobile, or laptop computer will do-preferably outfitted with either the Mac OS, Windows or Linux operating system. Many hand-held computers are outfitted for the job.

2) A way to connect

A network interface card designed to operate with an 802.11b network will do nicely. This card slides into a common laptop.

3) A map of available hot spots would be helpful.

For example, in Manchester, Fusion at 967 Elm St. and Ahh-Some Gourmet Coffee at 900 Elm St. offer wireless service. The map of Manchester Wireless coverage is available at www.manchesterwireless.org.

Would you like Wi-Fi with your order?

McDonald's customers will soon be able to browse the Internet while downing their Big Mac. The fast food giant is getting into the wireless business, launching wireless Web access at more than 50 San Francisco-area restaurants earlier this month.

Amy Hebert of Bishoff Communications, a spokeswoman for McDonald's, said that the company will install wireless services in restaurants in Chicago, New York and Canada by the end of the year. "We pride ourselves on leading our industry in speed, convenience, service and value," she said. "We believe Wi-Fi access adds another innovative and valuable item to our menu."

The cost of a wireless connection at the San Francisco hotspots is $4.95 for two hours, but users can get it free for a time with the purchase of a Big Mac value meal.

McDonald's recently opened free hotspots at its restaurants in China and is in discussions for service in Japan and Australia. In the U.S., McDonald's will be joining companies like Starbucks, which offers a fee-for-service connection, and Schlotzky's, an Austin-based operator of deli-style restaurants, which currently offers free Wi-Fi service in 15 of its 600-plus restaurants.

Hebert said that McDonald's plans to add wireless service to several hundred more restaurants this year, but did not know if any of New Hampshire's 63 restaurants (six in Manchester) were on the list.

What is the Web and why should you care?

The Web was created by scientists at CERN, the supercollider in Geneva, to allow scientists all over the world to share information. The Web was maintained by the scientists at CERN and it was free.

In the early days, only people who knew what they were doing were online. For example, bulletin board systems developed as a community forum for like-minded people to find one another.

"I can remember being on a bulletin board system," says Travis Roy, co-founder of ManchesterWireless.org. "I must have met over a hundred people on the BBS and was really good friends with about 12 of them."

Now, the Internet has become as massive and anonymous as a street in New York. The scientists at CERN gave up trying to maintain the Web and handed it off to the Internet monitors. The salad days are long gone. ManchesterWireless.org is an attempt to get back to a time when people used the Internet on their own terms, to build a community unmediated by private companies.

Judah Pollack and Dan J. Szczesny can be reached at hippo@hippopress.com