Free Wireless Internet Access: The Movement, Tech & Policy

Overview of the Wireless Movement

Since the construction of the information superhighway, its use to distribute information has become phenomenal. Information gathering and dissemination is among the most valuable assets for a business to succeed, and demands for ever more efficient means of connecting to the Internet have driven exponential technological advances. The craze to connect has gone wireless, and with this technology an entirely new set of issues, concerns, and problems has arisen. One movement associated with the wireless phenomenon is the free wireless internet access movement. Not unlike the original free internet movement — which largely became a victim of cost burdens and an inability to scale technology with growth — the free wireless movement is a demand by individuals and communities to offer a network or city-wide connectivity system that is free of charge to the wireless user.

The wireless movement encompasses many issues of telecommunication that have been widely debated since the advent of the cell phone. Many believed that cell phone access would almost instantaneously replace traditional wired phone service, though it has proven to be a more gradual process. As one early analysis predicted: "Many analysts believe that wireless could become the voice communications technology of choice — eventually becoming a substitute for existing telephone service — because it offers the added advantage of mobility. Over the next five to ten years, wireless technologies will emerge as significant competitors in most communication, information and entertainment markets" (OTA, 1995, qtd. in Regli 108).

The greatest reason why many individuals have reluctantly retained wired phone connections, or landlines, has to do with the inability of the standard user to access the internet without a hard-wired phone. Though the technology is now available for such access, the transition will again be gradual as issues of cost, legality, and security are worked out by wireless experts and the FCC.

The main obstacle in this transition has largely been cost, as standard internet connections through dial-up services are still less expensive than the wireless systems available to users. Yet as wireless cell phone companies begin to develop packages and plans — including equipment — in the same manner that traditional wire-based organizations have, and as the technology becomes more widely available, the cost issue will disappear from the radar screen and wireless will become the standard system for access.

With this wireless movement there has developed an underground effort to offer wireless access free to any individual who has the equipment to use it. Though traditional paid systems are more likely to retain the public's attention, those sincerely interested in wireless access are becoming increasingly aware of services being offered free of charge in many locations — beginning with traditional settings like coffee shops and hotels. This trend has produced the reality that regulating such services through a cost system is difficult, and that accessing open-air systems for free is virtually inevitable. It is for this reason, and for common reasons of many individuals wishing to close the technology gap between the rich and the poor, that free wireless movements have sprung up, and they are clearly growing exponentially.