April 30, 2003

TC WiFi connecting 3 locations to Internet

Plan is to offer service for free

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

TRAVERSE CITY - You've got e-mail to check and a report to file but it's a beautiful day and you don't want to be inside.
What to do?
If TC WiFi gets its way, you'll be able to grab your laptop, head to the Open Space and log on to the Internet and work and play at the same time.

TC WiFi plans to set up free wireless Internet service in these three locations.

Those who have laptops that are equipped for wireless Internet access, better known as WiFi, can log on right now at the Loading Dock bar at Lake and Cass streets in Traverse City.
They'll soon be able to do the same thing at Building 50 at the Grand Traverse Commons. And WiFi organizers are working on antenna locations to serve the Open Space.
That could mean Internet service right to your boat if it's moored within about a football field's length of the antenna. In time they hope to create many such "hotspots" around town.
Wireless Internet access works much like cell phone systems by hooking free-roaming laptops with WiFi capability to host sites by radio.
Wireless access networks are springing up all over the country. Aspen, Colo., has virtually complete coverage. New York City, Washington, D.C., and Seattle, Wash., also have extensive networks.
In most cases users have to pay a subscription fee to be able to log on. TC WiFi, however, plans to offer the service for free if it can line up enough equipment donations and volunteer hosts to share their Internet connections.
TC WiFi is a not-for-profit community service project of the Traverse Area Association of Realtors' Education Services program and Lars Kelto, an information technology consultant and video technician.
"This is really the old Traverse City FreeNet all over again," said Judith Lindenau, executive vice president of the realty association. "Where that brought free Internet access by phone dial-up to the region in the early 1990s, this will do the same for wireless access."
Lindenau sees TC WiFi getting the technology out there and in use until the big communications companies like AT&T and Ameritech get their own for-pay services set up.
TC WiFi will have some limitations. Companies and organizations will be donating a portion of their Internet access capacity to the network, so TC WiFi users will probably be limited in both transmission speed and time online. Partners donating bandwidth will get advertising and links on the site log-in page that will be presented to users. Security measures are built into both the hardware and software to block access to hosts' internal networks.
For more information about TC WiFi, see the project's Web site at: http://tcwf.taar.com/.

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