Our own Klaus Ernst (he’s an active NYCwireless member) reports on some of availability of the CBS MobileZone on Wi-Fi Net News.
The 47th Street Subway entrance has the “CBS mobile ((ZONE)) surf the web here. Free!” orange banner (see picture) but there was no hotspot. Maybe next time.
Well, it’s not hopeless, but CBS is definitely not blanketing the area with Wi-Fi the way they made it sound in the press release.
Craig Plunkett also reports on his blog about the network:
I was in the Big Town yesterday and decided to try getting access through my blackberry from a Wi-Fi node next to a billboard that I could clearly see. 3 bars on the blackberry wifi meter, but no joy. For some reason, my blackberry coughed up a W010 failure to associate message. The node in question is on the southwest corner of 40th and 7th avenue, at a cell site/billboard on top of a 3 story building.
For those not in the business, the business end of this connection is the white box with the three antennae above the all-seeing CBS eye. The two long antennae are the stock dipoles that come with a Tropos 3200 node. That’s what your wifi device connects to. The third white little can in between the two long ones I thought might have been an EV-DO antenna that is commented upon in Glenn’s wifinetnews post here. However, a person connected with the project has quashed that notion adamantly, and upon closer inspection of the picture, it’s just the top of the mounting mast sticking up over the Tropos node. Notice the cell site antennae below the CBS sign. Usually, there’s fiber to these cell sites, and that might be what the site is using for backhaul. I’m not really buying John’s explanation of the connection issues. I haven’t ever had to do the kinds of on/off gyrations he’s describing to get connected, whether it was a blackberry, XP, or Vista laptop, and if you have to screw around that much with your adapter just to get connected, then nobody’s going to use it.
Craig’s right that if the connection isn’t going to work well given the RF interference from all the other Wi-Fi, there’s likely to be little use. Its not clear that CBS has learned from earlier experiences from Verizon’s ill fated Wi-Fi push a few years ago that having Wi-Fi on a street corner means nothing if there’s no easy way to use it with your laptop.
One important aspect of Free Wi-Fi networks is that to be useful, they must be in locations that have seating available, and there’s very little seating available on the streets of midtown Manhattan. Both Klaus and Craig are Wi-Fi early adopters, and happen to have handheld devices, but very few people in the general population are so lucky. In reality, if the connectivity isn’t better than dial-up for any user, there’s little point to using the network on a Wi-Fi equipped phone like the iPhone or Blackberry, since the cell networks are going to be about as fast and the Wi-Fi connection.
The Tropos gear uses 802.11g Wi-Fi gear to distribute internet access to the nodes, but this only makes the problem of Wi-Fi interference worse. In midtown, you can usually see dozens of access points, and that’s just the ones that are broadcasting their SSID. The Tropos backhaul likely experiences lots of radio congestion on the omni-directional antennas it uses, and only serves to increase the amount of Wi-Fi noise broadcast into the area.
Have any other NYCwireless users used the network?
NYCwireless 
Ooof, being a little harsh on The Tiffany Network here. They might just be having some startup problems, and the budgets for these things are notoriously small. In my experience, advertisers have sticker shock when it comes to the reality of building out good wi-fi coverage. I’m sure a lot of integrators around the country are lowballing jobs just to make payroll given the collapse of the muniwireless market. I would probably have gone with a much less expensive dual-radio 2.4/5GHz solution like Tranzeo’s mesh, rather than the single radio Tropos unit that I pictured. There’s still a lot of poorly informed decision makers out there that believe the same consumer grade equipment will work like a champ under outdoor conditions. A fair number of venue owners are also delusional and close their networks with WEP keys, then give out the key to hapless users that don’t know how to configure their clients. It becomes too much trouble to use and support. After a while, when you visit these venues, the counter staff avoids the issue by saying the wireless is down.
I also believe that laptop users won’t see much benefit from this zone because of the nature of the streetscape and the winter weather in NYC. There’s limited indoor seating to pop open a laptop, and forget about balancing your laptop on your knees at Broadway and 47th st. Dual-mode handhelds are the most likely user target, but I haven’t been able to get mine connected. I probably would have looked for a handset or PDA manufacturer that had a retail presence within the zone to partner with, and a web design company that specialized in mobile browsers to optimize the experience.
As much as it grates on some folks, the people doing the best job in this space, are the guys that charge for it at the business traveler’s Holy Trinity: Starbucks/Borders/Kinkos, T-Mobile.
Ooof, being a little harsh on The Tiffany Network here. They might just be having some startup problems, and the budgets for these things are notoriously small. In my experience, advertisers have sticker shock when it comes to the reality of building out good wi-fi coverage. I’m sure a lot of integrators around the country are lowballing jobs just to make payroll given the collapse of the muniwireless market. I would probably have gone with a much less expensive dual-radio 2.4/5GHz solution like Tranzeo’s mesh, rather than the single radio Tropos unit that I pictured. There’s still a lot of poorly informed decision makers out there that believe the same consumer grade equipment will work like a champ under outdoor conditions. A fair number of venue owners are also delusional and close their networks with WEP keys, then give out the key to hapless users that don’t know how to configure their clients. It becomes too much trouble to use and support. After a while, when you visit these venues, the counter staff avoids the issue by saying the wireless is down.
I also believe that laptop users won’t see much benefit from this zone because of the nature of the streetscape and the winter weather in NYC. There’s limited indoor seating to pop open a laptop, and forget about balancing your laptop on your knees at Broadway and 47th st. Dual-mode handhelds are the most likely user target, but I haven’t been able to get mine connected. I probably would have looked for a handset or PDA manufacturer that had a retail presence within the zone to partner with, and a web design company that specialized in mobile browsers to optimize the experience.
As much as it grates on some folks, the people doing the best job in this space, are the guys that charge for it at the business traveler’s Holy Trinity: Starbucks/Borders/Kinkos, T-Mobile.
T-mobile does now Penn Station too (Waiting areas and Club Acela)
Maybe ‘business travelers’ don’t go there but McDonald’s/Wayport is also very reliable.
Klaus Ernst
T-mobile does now Penn Station too (Waiting areas and Club Acela)
Maybe ‘business travelers’ don’t go there but McDonald’s/Wayport is also very reliable.
Klaus Ernst
You are correct with the whole notion of outdoor or indoor seating in the area. It is very difficult to test the network when you have to prop the laptop on one of the news stands or a trash can in the dead of winter. That is why this is a test, to see what environmental and social factors create the best environment for WiFi users to connect in a place like NYC. People connect and use the Mobile Zone network everyday and the assets are fixed so the coverage is constrained to the assets.
In NYC, low power WiFi devices will have about a 30-50ft range, if that, given the -78 noise floor in NYC for 2.5Ghz and the 5.8ghz spectrum, mentioned above, is out of the question as the NYC police and Towerstream all of it. Look outside Penn Station and see the Police Antennas connecting the cameras. All 5.8Ghz.
Even a laptop, with a 30mw client card, will only have a range of about 100ft or so due to the noise floor. Acertaining where the current users connect, including I-Phones, and what makes certain areas more conducive for connection, is what the test is all about.
What is really interesting, is that in the McDonalds, around 50th and Broadway, even Netstumbler can pick up more than 2 or 3 networks while inside. When outside the door, it is a whole different story. These types of things provide a wealth of information on deploying WiFi networks in RF busy environments.
I like the feedback and it is important in evaluating the use of WiFi in a place like NYC. Keep it coming both positive and negative. I only wish I would see the feedback from the power users that download over 1GB per day on the network.
You are correct with the whole notion of outdoor or indoor seating in the area. It is very difficult to test the network when you have to prop the laptop on one of the news stands or a trash can in the dead of winter. That is why this is a test, to see what environmental and social factors create the best environment for WiFi users to connect in a place like NYC. People connect and use the Mobile Zone network everyday and the assets are fixed so the coverage is constrained to the assets.
In NYC, low power WiFi devices will have about a 30-50ft range, if that, given the -78 noise floor in NYC for 2.5Ghz and the 5.8ghz spectrum, mentioned above, is out of the question as the NYC police and Towerstream all of it. Look outside Penn Station and see the Police Antennas connecting the cameras. All 5.8Ghz.
Even a laptop, with a 30mw client card, will only have a range of about 100ft or so due to the noise floor. Acertaining where the current users connect, including I-Phones, and what makes certain areas more conducive for connection, is what the test is all about.
What is really interesting, is that in the McDonalds, around 50th and Broadway, even Netstumbler can pick up more than 2 or 3 networks while inside. When outside the door, it is a whole different story. These types of things provide a wealth of information on deploying WiFi networks in RF busy environments.
I like the feedback and it is important in evaluating the use of WiFi in a place like NYC. Keep it coming both positive and negative. I only wish I would see the feedback from the power users that download over 1GB per day on the network.