Published by Dana Spiegel on August 25, 2008 under NewsNo Comments »
Idealist.org has posted a podcast interview of me (Dana Spiegel) and Laura Forlano talking about NYCwireless and the work that we do. Check it out!
Most of us probably think of using the internet as a solitary, indoor activity. NYCwireless thinks differently.
In the latest CommunityPodcast, we look at how NYCwireless is working to bring the internet to everyone in New York City, both in and outside of their apartments. By “lighting up” public parks with free wi-fi access, the organization is helping New Yorkers to connect outdoors–and encouraging a new community of users while they’re at it.
We talk with Dana Spiegel and Laura Forlano from NYCwireless to hear more about their mission and projects. We also explore the challenges they face as they strive to make internet access an accepted public service.
Published by Dana Spiegel on July 24, 2008 under Events, News, PolicyComments Off
July 30, 2008
11:00 am
to
1:00 pm
I just received this notice from a contact at the City Council. Everyone should attend if they can (unfortunately I won’t be able to go) and report back.
Very curious too that:
(a) The report from Diamond Consultants is only about the digital divide, since I was under the impression that the research was supposed to be about a lot more than just the digital divide, and
(b) This is being presented as “the Bloomberg Administration’s plans”, because I would think that the Bloomberg Administration would present their own plans and not have a consultant present for them, and further their “plans” should be based in part on the findings of the Broadband Advisory Committee, who’s whole point of existing is to bring a different perspective and set of expertise to any “plans” that are created.
Overall, I’m not too hopeful for what will be presented. I suspect it will be much too little, and frankly at least 6 months too late. This administration inexplicably has shown no spine for dealing with internet and network access issues and tends to kowtow to Verizon and Time Warner Cable. But, maybe, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
CITY HALL - On Wednesday, July 30th at 11:00am there will be a briefing from the Mayor’s Office and Diamond Consultants for the Broadband Advisory Committee regarding the Bloomberg Administration’s plans for bridging the digital divide in New York City.
The Broadband Advisory Committee was established in 2005 with the passage of Introduction 625-A creating a joint public broadband commission to advise the Mayor and the City Council of New York on how the resources of City government can be used to stimulate the private market so that residents and businesses of New York City have more options in terms of high-speed Internet access. The goal of the committee is to educate the general public about broadband and the newest communication technologies, and to give New York City residents the opportunity to comment on how the digital divide in New York City can be closed. To support these efforts the Broadband Advisory Committee has held public Broadband Hearings in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. The Committee will hold its fifth and final hearing in Staten Island this fall.
Diamond Consultants was hired by the New York City Economic Development Corporation to determine the breadth of the digital divide in New York City and develop programs and initiatives to provide greater digital inclusion for all residents. Chris O’Brien, a Partner in Diamond’s Public Sector practice, will be detailing Diamond’s findings and its recommendations for the City’s next steps.
The meeting will take place in the Committee of the Whole Room, City Hall, New York, NY on Wednesday, July 30th at 11:00 am. This is a public meeting and all are welcome to attend. For further information please contact Kunal Malhotra, Director of Legislation & Budget, 212-788-6975 or Kunal.Malhotra@council.nyc.gov.
Today I received an email from an NYCwireless supporter about sharing out their organization’s Wi-Fi network. I thought it was a general enough request for information that I’d share our viewpoint and suggestions with other NYCwireless readers:
Should we share our password-protected network with a neighbor???
Hi. Thanks for your advocacy.
We recently password-protected our Verizon wireless network. (We were having intermittency issues and this was one of the remedial measures we chose to take.) And we just got a call from someone who’ll be staying in the neighborhood for a few months, asking to share our network for a nominal fee. We are community-minded and inclined to oblige such a request, but we are concerned about security breaches, given that we are a professional organization and have sensitive data on our network to protect, etc.
Can you advise as to the potential consequences?
I can recommend that you use common sense here. If you have private/sensitive data on your network, then common sense says you shouldn’t allow people onto the network unless you trust them or you have proper safeguards in place to protect the data even if someone gets access to your network. Such safeguards–disk encryption, strong passwords, moving the data to a computer that isn’t network accessible, segmenting the network so that only wired computers can get access to data on a server–are all good ideas regardless of whether you operate a public wi-fi network or not.
Further, I doubt that your intermittency issues have any relation to whether your network is password protected or not. Far more likely are sources of interference, which can sometimes be addressed by either (a) moving your access point, or (b) changing the wireless channel of your access point. Putting a password on a network will do nothing to address connectivity issues.
If you are community minded, and part of how you want to provide a service to the community is to provide a free wi-fi network to nearby people, I would recommend you put a proper hotspot online. We can help you out with that, and your neighbors will be able to access your hotspot free and clear of any passwords. Unfortunately, providing a password to a single community member isn’t providing a service to your community, it’s providing a service to a single person.
Published by Dana Spiegel on June 14, 2008 under NewsComments Off
George Rausch has filmed an excellent documentary on Philadelphia’s Muni-wireless Wi-Fi network built by Earthlink. Now that the network has been shut down (as of June 12), its a great time to gain some additional insight into what happened and why (on Philly’s side).
Now Recruiting for a Pilot In A Box kit team for the OLPC Grassroots Jam
One Laptop per Child will be holding a Grassroots Jam at the Manthattan Neighborhood Network studio from Saturday June 14 through Sunday June 15. In two days, we’ll be building a Pilot In A Box kit (focused on integrating XO use into specific curricular modules) and testing it with local children in preparation for deploying the Kit at an actual school pilot within 4 months - stay tuned for more on the specific deployment conditions we’ll be designing for. All materials will be provided.
We’re looking for a 50-person team of educators, content-creators, artists, writers, programmers, engineers, and others who can contribute to a Pilot In A Box kit. In addition to coming up for ways for teachers to use the things inside The Box, we’ll need to figure out (and make) what’s in The Box, how schools will repair equipment from The Box, how The Box is transported and stored, how its content can be localized, how The Box can be used for communication over a diverse set of networks, and more. We are also looking for young testers (ages 7-14, with their parents) to come in and try out the finished products on Sunday afternoon, June 15, from 3-6pm.
Registration is free but space is limited, so we have a rolling admissions process. To view more information, including how you or your group can participate, see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Grassroots_Jam. We hope to see you there!
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization created to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. The rugged, Linux-based, mesh-networking-enabled, and power-efficient laptops have begun to be deployed to children by schools across the world on the basis of one laptop per child. OLPC is based on constructionist theories of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital.
Published by Laura Forlano on June 4, 2008 under NewsComments Off
German techno-political blogger Markus Beckedahl, the founder of Newthinking, interviewed me for a podcast, which is available on Netzpolitik. The podcast is about the failure of municipal wireless networks to identify sustainable business models and lessons that can be learned from community wireless networks such as NYCwireless, Freifunk and Funkfeuer.
NYCwireless is a non-profit organization that advocates and enables the growth of free, public wireless Internet access in parks, public spaces, and affordable housing residences in New York City and surrounding areas.
If you are interested in building a free Wi-Fi hotspot in your business, park, or housing development, contact us.
Published by Dana Spiegel on August 25, 2008 under News 
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