As with any new innovation, there are many misunderstandings about what WiFi is and isn’t and what role it does or doesn’t play. Here are a few of the commonly repeated ‘urban myths’ and the truth behind them.
MYTH: Community WiFi is unfair to private enterprise
REALTIY: Community WiFi is NOT a competitor to existing private enterprise. Rather, it is an extension and an adjunct to the private sector, one that is likely to generate business for private access vendors. It enlarges enlarged the potential market and helping to sustain young business and create new jobs, and exposes the benefits of access to people who may not have been exposed to it previously.
In this region, community WiFi supports emerging business, the creative economy, and tourism. It supports early stage companies until they have the ability to install their own connectivity and networks, developing a base of future business for the private sector. It increases demand for connectivity services among consumers.
MYTH: Roving bands of teenagers/social misfits/thugs will use the system to download porn, send spam, and create havoc.
REALITY: Community WiFi is used for mundane tasks, like looking at information in a web browser or checking email, and the people who use it look like you and me.
In the unlikely event that massive downloading or uploading were to happen, there are existing safeguards within the technology to automatically shut off the user and report a misuse problem. In addition, part of Unwired Village Orleans is a research to better understand which applications are used most often and what usage patterns emerge, to make it easier to spot deviations and prevent any potential misuse of the resource before it begins.
MYTH: It is dangerous and insecure.
REALTIY: Community WiFi is not a security risk. It is not designed to be a system for people to send secure document across or to handle private network transactions; these types of use requirements are appropriately the purview of personal/business products from private enterprise access providers.
While community WiFi is never intended as a fully secure network, it does incorprate levels of security that can be set and managed, which make it perfectly safe for normal use. For example access to certain domains or applications can be controlled and managed based on a variety of factors. And, education about security and proper data use in general can address many of the perceived fears.