Last Updated: January 13, 2010, 5:06 pm

An interesting thing happened to me on the way to a meeting today. I was running late so I decided that my best bet would be a cab. Normally, when in a cab I use my bluetooth to connect my Powerbook to my cellphone and connect to T-Mobile's GPRS network for data transfer. This normally works fine except that today I needed to download a rather large file from my machine at the office. Being that the speeds of GPRS seldom exceed 33.6kbs I needed a faster connection. While sitting at a traffic light I managed to utilize someone's open wireless network "linksys". This is the default name for the wireless network on Linksys routers which, also by default, are left unsecured. I was able to stay logged on long enough to log into the work machine and download the file.

While cruising along I realized that there were many open "linksys" networks along 3rd Avenue. Each time I stopped at a light my machine would attach itself to "linksys" and I was up and running again. Being that the machine is assigned a new IP address and must negotiate with the router each time it's not as seamless as it sounds.

It's not a sure fire bet and much less ideal then the potential of systems like Wi-Max but in the mean time the free access of unsecured networks coupled with the traffic and stoplights of NYC makes for decent internet access while on the road.