Doc Searls discovers a vibrant wireless scene in London
But the mindblower came when I arrived in London. After failing once again at dial-up from my hotel, I went down to the local internet cafÈ. There I paid a few pounds to sit for a couple hours with my laptop jacked into the Net, looking for local wireless access points. It took awhile, but I eventually hit pay dirt in the form of Consume.net (consume.net), the FAQ of which modestly describes its mission as “a collaborative strategy for the self provision of a broadband telecommunications infrastructure”. And indeed, that’s what it is.
The top link on the left column of the main index page is “Nodes”. Clicking here brings up a map with little circles all over it, each bearing the name of an access point. Some, like Hyde Park and Greenwich University, are relatively obvious locations–if you’re a local, which I’m not. Most are obscure: “twenteenth node”, “dude”, “neotokyo”. But after I subtracted out all but the operational nodes (marked green), I found that the nearest one, called Kynance Mews, was a short walk up Gloucester Road from my hotel on Cromwell, in South Kensington.
When I clicked on “get node info”, a page with an abundance of useful information appeared. In addition to the name of the node, it featured coordinates by both latitude/longitude and the Ordnance Survey, links to detailed street maps and aerial photographs and a list of every other node within 4,000 meters, including distance (to the meter) and compass bearing (to the degree). The description read, “Up and running–covering Kynance Mews and Kynance Place. This includes two cafÈs with good coffee and outside seating. Hurrah!”
So I walked straight up Gloucester, and sure enough, a signal presented itself as soon as I passed the parallel entries to Kynance Mews and Kynance Place. Down at the other end of the latter was a pretty little French cafÈ with outdoor seating called Petite DÈlice. So I went down there, ordered a coffee and a pastry, sat down, opened my laptop and found I was already on the Net. The node identified as Kynance Community Wireless, assigned me a DHCP address and let me at the bandwidth. To further perfect the situation, the sky had turned to puffy blue clouds, the air was warm, the flowers blooming, the birds singing and South Kensington looked as postcard-perfect as you can imagine.
Two tables away another patron was sitting at a table talking about “access” to a tall and familiar-looking young gentleman walking a very friendly greyhound. I called over and said “Excuse me, is this your node I’m on?” “Yes”, he said, and came over. A look of recognition crossed his face and he said, “You’re Doc Searls!” “Yes!” I replied. After uttering a delighted expletive, he held out his hand and introduced himself as Ben Hammersley.
{ 0 comments… add one now }