Internet access is quietly changing Seattle’s tent cities

Re:Internet access is quietly changing Seattle’s tent cities by p49k on Sunday April 01, 2018 @10:00AM (#16728274)

He got downvoted because he has no understanding of how expensive it is to build a network of public wi-fi hotspots, and compared it to sticking his router beside his window and sharing his home broadband connection.

Literally everything about public wifi, from the wiring and build costs, to the hardware and antennas, to the bandwidth itself is significantly more expensive. $6,100 per point sounds completely reasonable.

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Re:Internet access is quietly changing Seattle’s tent cities by wallace_f on Sunday April 01, 2018 @11:13AM (#16728665)

This is just wrong, and missing the point.

The article states they are providing up to 834 people with internet access with 50+11 hot spots.

I shared a 20$ data plan with two+ travelmates while on gap year in Australia, and it worked extremely well. $7/person cost. Give or take for US data rates and inflation since then.

Even with generous assumptions, these wifi hot spots are at least 50x, and coule be 100x, that cost.

So worst case scenario, just buy them all smart phones and data plans for a small fraction of the cost of this current setup.

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Re:Internet access is quietly changing Seattle’s tent cities by def_true_false on Sunday April 01, 2018 @12:03PM (#16728955)

Not sure if it applies here, but cell towers also have limits. Especially if the area is somewhat remote (think music festivals, etc).

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Re:Internet access is quietly changing Seattle’s tent cities by pnutjam on Sunday April 01, 2018 @10:17AM (#16728388)

The simple fact is you could do it cheaper, but you either pay for expertise or hardware. If you don't have a skilled network guy volunteering time, it's going to cost, even if you do, it's going to cost only a bit less.

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