Riding the bus = geek-friendly WiFi hotspot
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Filed in Nokia, Wi-Fi
With WiFi becoming commonplace in cell phones now, the withdrawal symptoms become increasingly obvious when you’re not connected. In an effort to further the addiction, Nokia has tricked out a dozen buses in Singapore with a full-on WiFi hotspot, and unlike a lot of options, this one’s free. All you have to do is agree to a few terms of service, and you’re on your way. No word of any kind of world-wide rollout, as this is just a trial that Nokia will re-evaluate in a couple months. All of a sudden, that bus pass is starting to look a little better, isn’t it?
wow i can only imagine riding that bus with a Tmobile @Home phone (or any UMA phone) making unlimited calls or surfin the net on the Nokia N810!
awesome! come on major US cities…time to jump on board
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There is a bus service in the US from DC to NYC that has WiFi on board. http://www.dc2ny.com. Not super fast, but it makes the trip a lot nicer…. Doing some scans the last time I rode it seems they just have a Verizon EVDO card plugged into a wireless router. Better than nothing!
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Yeah this is great. Last time I checked it was $2 to ride the bus where I live, adding WiFi would make this ride worth it.
Seems like this should have been done in all public transportation years ago.
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I would love for even a slow internet connection on public transportation. I have always needed to check different things and living in Houston,TX, you can be on a bus for 2 hours straight.
Please give this idea to the world Nokia, bless us like you always do so well.
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about a week ago i read something on a local paper (portugal) about something similar.
there’s a bus company that operates a line between two cities (one of them has a tech college) and they’re doing the same on that line. they were providing access for free until christmas, and trying to figure out what to do afterwards.
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The only problem with the WiFi on most cell phones is you have to turn it on and off. If they had it so when there was a hotspot, if you will, that you have stored the password to or is free it would automatically connect to it otherwise it would switch back to the 3G or current data network you have running. That’s the only problem with it on cell phones and there is no phone (including the iPhone) that does that. (Yes apple fanboys your iPhone does not do that I have even asked the guys at apple about it back when I was considering getting one. No phone/smartphone/pda phone does it.)
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In Seattle we have a small population of our public transit busses with WiFi. From the linked article, “The Seattle Metro has teamed up with Sprint Cellular and Junxion, Inc., a Seattle-based mobile connection provider, to offer Wi-Fi service on 48 buses serving the four transit routes.”
http://www.metrokc.gov/kcdot/news/2007/nr070405_wifi.htm
Also, At Jeff B:
T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home Blackberry 8320 will save WiFi passwords and automatically switch to them when in range. Beyond data usage, this is also how it handles UMA calling. You just need to set it to the “WiFi Preferred” option. Right now, my 8320 has 7 different WiFi profiles. I don’t know if there is a limit to how many can be stored.
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man thats just nice i wish that they could it in the metro Atlanta area or in the places in small place were i live they better hurry up with them buses already!
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