Aug 29, 2006

surf in your SUV

Sure, it's big news that Washington state rest stops will now allow wi-fi access, free for travel info, and with fees for broadband use.
The service went up Monday at 28 of the state's 42 rest stops, including the Maytown and Scatter Creek stops south of Tumwater along Interstate 5....

Travelers can get free access to the DOT Web site for traveler information, as well as to Amtrak, some bus and other transportation-related Web sites.

But for broader access, motorists will have to pay a fee: $1.99 for 20 minutes' access; $3.99 for a day; $7.99 for a week; and $29.99 for a month.
But the really big news is buried at the end. Keep scrolling, and you find:
What is wi-fi?

Wi-Fi is a brand originally licensed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe the underlying technology of wireless local area networks. ... A person with a Wi-Fi device, such as a computer, telephone or personal digital assistant can connect to the Internet when near an access point. The region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. Hotspots can range from a single room to many square miles of overlapping hotspots."

Source: Wikipedia
That's right. Wikipedia, despite the best efforts of creeps, malcontents, hackers, egotists, partisans, and vandals, is good enough to be gospel.

1 comment:

MT said...

Jeepers. At least the cited the source. I'd like it a lot better if the paper attributed the explanation to wikipedia as to a person and then said something about what Wikipedia is. And they've got no excuse not to link the cite in the online edition.