Reports from readers are always useful as they reveal actual experiences out on the road or in communities. One such reader, with the lovely name and nickname of Langston James "Kimo" Goree VI, wrote in about his recent experience in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Mr. Goree travels on behalf of an office at the U.N. setting up connectivity for reporting services at negotiation sessions around the world, many of which now feature wireless networks as part of the mix. Mr. Goree writes:
The company that is wiring AMS for 802.11b is a href="https://www.attingo.nl">Attingo, and they run the Airport Communications Centre, which offers various services including web access, phone cards, small private offices, etc.
I spoke with the owner/general manager who was there supervising the installation of the wireless access points. He said that he had just finished going around with the airport security people and briefing them on the locations of the points. He said that they would be doing the piers soon, but that he was still in some discussions with KLM about wiring up the Business Class lounges. He said, “they want too much money.”
I bought a userid and password that was good for the whole day. it was about US$10. I set my LAN service area to the name they gave me (“any”). After some problems with routing (there was an error in their script that failed to create a route through the proxy server for the assigned IP address) I was up and running. There is a whole veranda full of comfortable recliners about 50 meters from the Communications Centre. Speed was good.
Commercial Network Update
I've posted an updated article about the state of U.S. and Canadian for-fee networks.