by George Ziemann

The story itself is small and merely touts the technological coming of age of a small California town.

CERRITOS, California (AP) -- Browsing the Web from this Southern California city may soon become an outdoor sport.

The first phase of a project to establish citywide wireless Internet access is slated to begin next month. Ultimately, anyone with a laptop or wireless device will be able to surf the Web from virtually anywhere in the city's 8.6-square-mile (22-square-kilometer) area.

Scores of wireless networking transmitters are being placed atop public buildings, traffic lights and other structures to blanket the city.

The project is being touted by Aiirnet Wireless, its operator, as the largest wireless networking, or Wi-Fi, deployment in the nation.

The city struck a deal with the company that allows Aiirnet to place transmitters throughout the city for free, city spokeswoman Annie Hylton said.

Brian Grimm, spokesman for the Wi-Fi Alliance, which certifies and promotes the technology, said he couldn't verify Aiirnet's claim, but noted Cerritos is the only city so far that has said it intends to establish citywide wireless access.

Wi-Fi radiates an Internet connection that multiple computers within 300 feet (90 meters) can share at fast speeds. Wi-Fi hot spots have cropped up over the last couple of years in coffee shops, hotels and airports.

Some small towns, including Half Moon Bay, California, and Athens, Georgia, have started experimenting with Wi-Fi as a way to provide relatively cheap, easy access to high-speed Internet.

The 51,000 residents of Cerritos, located 26 miles (41 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, have not had DSL broadband access to the Internet because the city is too far from the telephone company's central office. Cable Internet access has not been an option, either, Hylton said.

Residents in Cerritos have asked city officials to find a way to bring broadband to the city for some time.

"We're pleased that our residents will at last have an option for broadband that will be more affordable than is currently available," Hylton said.

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They're also going to have a way to connect to Kazaa and be immune to the RIAA's snooping. The IP addresses will all (theoretically) be owned by the city. People can tap in, download and move on.

So what will the RIAA do when they see a bunch of Kazaa users logged on from Cerritos' WiFi network? Sue the entire city? They certainly won't be able to sue individual users. Where will the evidence be?

And watch for a wide variation in defenses for file-sharing.

"I don't even have an Internet connection."

"What do you mean it's in the air?"

"I wasn't even home that day."

WiFi is the chink in the RIAA's legal assault on the American people. The faster it spreads, the faster we will see that the RIAA has, indeed, used the last arrow in its quiver.

looks like the RIAA is screwed :fofl:

One Theory:

The RIAA will probably find a way to sue the city to force them to put on systems that can monitor wireless traffic and cut off those who are detected using Peer to Peer. since they cannot sue individual users the burden will be placed on the city to monitor and police it.

Another court ordered lawenforcement authority, curtosey of you friendly neiborhood RIAA.

There will be ways around it I'm sure

I see 51,000 targets, like shooting ducks in a barrel, that will have to fork over X number of dollars to the riaa's henchmen.... or the isp will have to come up with some monies for them.... I'm sure they are not overlooking this situation. It will be interesting to see what road they do take. ~~pepe~~

Wonderful idea for the city, very progressive thimking in allowing more people to access broadband.

Unfortunately compmore and pepe are probably right in the fact that the slimeballs will lean on the city bigtime to do the policing. Hope the city tells them to stick it where their heads already are.

Everyone will eventually have to have an account (one that IDs them) or they will be denied access to the network.

"There will be ways around it I'm sure"


high-bit encryption is one way

WiFi isn't going anywhere; it's too technically limited. Future wireless technologies will, but they are a few years down the road.

The city will effectively be an ISP and will have the legal responsibilities of one. If it turns into a thieves' den, it will get shut down one way or the other.

sounds to me like this thing is being done by aiirnet, the city is just giving them permision to install the equipment. The technology is a bit limited but is still viable and much cheaper than laying out hard lines. Plus the antennas can be upgraded to the new technologies. It is unlikely they would need to replace any wiring which is the most expensive part.

I would like to see people form their own p2p wireless networks. no no a kazaa thing but an actual network of computers linked to one another forming a network without ever stopping off at an isp. Yes it would have it's bottlenecks but a smart system would be able to work through it and better than that it would be imposible to regulate in any way. And monitoring would become very hard as well.

I wonder if the RIAA has a form of a wireless network in some of it's places. Or maybe Carey Sue or one of his cohorts does. If someone there has a wireless network wouldn't it be cool if someone, or a group of someones gets a laptop and parks outside and downloads everything they can. that would be a gas

they have this at my school, go anywhere on campus and you can connect to the internet, but kazaa and most of the rest are blocked.

the city will just do the same if it comes down to it.

The sooner the RIAA is smashed into dust and scattered to the four winds the better

"I would like to see people form their own p2p wireless networks. no no a kazaa thing but an actual network of computers linked to one another forming a network without ever stopping off at an isp"

This has been around for a while. It's what goes on in a lot of offices and schools. A lot of the small networks you describe were already there before the Internet.

Of course, they were incredibly slow...

Cities get sued all the time (often for millions of dollars). I'm sure that the RIAA will not hesitate to sue Cerritos for "illegal" copyright infringement via file sharing.

What if everyone shows up there on the same day with their laptops and downloads for hours? Sort of like a Kazaa/wi-fi convention. When there are only 51,000 people and it shows that 500,000 are downloading how can they sue the city?? Perhaps only for the 51,000 living there, but than they must prove who has access to it and go from there.

JamesD2, I'm not an expert on this aspect of the law, but I suspect that if this "kazaa/wi-fi convention took place in Cerritos, then the RIAA would try to make the case that the city, by providing such wi-fi service, would be liable for ALL 500,000 of the "infringing" participants.