GREENLINED for WiFi!* is a project initiated by WiFi-NY, a private member supported Wireless Internet Network broadcasting out of the East Village, New York.  WiFi-NY is developing a locally based wireless mesh broadband communications infrastructure using unlicensed radio spectrum and unregulated line-of-sight technologies including free-space laser optics, and by purchasing wholesale Internet connectivity directly via Carrier Neutral Facilities located in and around the metropolitan area.   WiFi-NY was founded in 2002 and has been operating since 2003 providing line-of-sight, point-to-point Internet access to homes and businesses, as well as free public access in and around New York's East Village, Tompkins Square Park, Lower East Side, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
 
WiFi-NY has embarked on the GREENLINED for WiFi!* project to fulfill its committment to build a city-wide "Citizen Stakeholder" based high-speed wireless network across the rooftops of NYC, powered by wind turbines and solar panels.  In order to realize this mission it is necessary to raise funds (of course), and to do this we turn not to banks and venture capitalists, but to the citizens themselves so that they can gain empowerment through taking stake in the network that they use.

Your support for GREENLINED for WiFi!* and  WiFi-NY helps to build locally-owned community based media infrastructure that provides protocol-neutrual connections to all of its Citizen-Stakeholder members.
(see how you can support GREENlined for WiFi!* by purchasing a PixelAD)

About WiFi-NY

WiFi-NY, an East Village Wireless based member supported private Internet Network has been providing wireless Internet access since 2003 to homes and businesses in and around New York's East Village/Lower East Side, as well as free public access wireless Internet in Loisaida's gardens and green spaces including Tompkins Square Park, La Plaza Cultural, Earth People Garden, De Colores Yard Garden, 9CD Garden, Open Road Park, and the ABC Playground.  WiFi-NY and its members have been the sole sponsors of free public access wireless Internet to guests and green spaces that are within range of the growing number WiFi-NY nodes throughout the East Village, Lower East Side, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

WiFi-NY is designed to empower individuals, organizations and content producers by gaining them a stake in the media infrastructure, built as a result of their participation in it.  This citizen-stakeholder model of media ownership is an attainable solution to the question of local media ownership, and articulates a new prototype for future development of public access media, while creating affordable access to broadband technologies.   As an alternative "last mile" provider, WiFi-NY exists as a third option to the cable/dsl "duopoly" that exists today, and as such provides a market-based solution to issues of "network neutrality" by enfranchising its members through their stakeholdership to establish consensus in governing appropriate use of their network.

WiFi-NY is committed to working with open standards, and towards providing and upholding "Net Neutrality" and privacy for our members.

WiFi-NY different than typcial wifi "hotspots" in many ways:

• WiFi-NY is constructed as a "Wireless Metropolitan Area Network" that enables clients to roam between WiFi-NY access points without disconnecting or interrupting service.
• WiFi-NY provides automated "Intrusion Protection Service" to prevent clients from being hacked by other users, as well as to prevent propagation of worms and viruses from infected users.
  
• WiFi-NY supports strongly encrypted "Virtual Private Network" (IPSec VPN) clients to protect members' traffic from casual interception by others. The IPSec VPN uses stronger encryption and is more secure than wireless "WEP" and "WPA" methods.
• WiFi-NY is a private member-based corporate network, who purchases Internet connectivity and bandwidth "wholesale" directly from Tier 1 carriers, and serves a an alternative "last mile" service, delivering connectivity to members locations over the air, not via cable nor dsl owned by local mega-corporate monopolies. 
  
• WiFi-NY is a third option to the cable/dsl "duopoly" over the "last-mile" that links the user to their Internet Service Provider.
• WiFi-NY creates a market-based solution to "Net Neutrality" questions, as a last-mile provider dedicated to maintaining the end-to-end transparency, open standards, and protocol neutrality of the original Internet.
  
• WiFi-NY has a stronger privacy policy than other ISPs, and does not allow outside access to our members' traffic and information.  Email between users on our system is contained within our "owned" space and does not go out over the open internet where it can be surveiled.
  
• WiFi-NY member email uses encrypted connections that protect member email passwords and content even when connecting from outside the WiFi-NY network, including over open insecure wireless links--a major feature that helps prevent identity theft! (*does not apply to third-party email such as aol, gmail, yahoo, msn, etc. except where similar secure services and privacy policies exist).
  
• WiFi-NY members may purchase optional fixed/public IP address and register a domain name that resolves to it.
• WiFi-NY leverages its members' collective purchasing power to buy carrier-neutral bandwidth directly from Tier 1 carriers and aggregators to provide business-class, data-neutral services to its members.  This allows WiFi-NY members to use p2p filesharing, voice over IP, video, and other services which commercial providers may soon restrict speed and access to over their cable and dsl lines.
  

Unlike the typical WiFi "hotspot",  WiFi-NY is engineered as a wireless "Metropolitan Area Network" that is seamless from end to end, and allows members to roam from repeater to repeater on the network and maintain their connection without disconnecting and reconnecting, as they do with typical "hotspots".   Rather than using existing cable and dsl infrastructure, that is owned by other carriers with varying use policies, WiFi-NY connects to its nodes "over the air" using various bands of available unlicensed radio spectrum, and infrared pulse-modulated laser, which connects through visual line-of-sight through free space, hence the term "free space optics".

During the Summer of 2005, WiFi-NY enabled live wireless video cybercasting of concerts in Tompkins Square Park, where anyone in the world could watch the live video from Tompkins Square Park on the web. That same summer WiFi-NY also provided wireless internet service to Sens Production's box office for the "Agora" performance at the McCarren Pool, McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.   Although the wireless repeaters were only temporarily installed for "Agora" in McCarren Park,  WiFi-NY demonstrated that it could deliver service solely using over the air technology, from its network operations in the East Village, all the way across the East River, to McCarren Park. WiFi-NY is committed to making free public access internet service permanently available to McCarren Park, and other parks and public spaces in New York City, and has come up with an economic model that could make it affordable and feasable to do so.

Primarily oriented towards providing an affordable alternative to local cable and dsl service, the WiFi-NY project has learned a great deal about the ups and downs as well as the economics of providing wireless Internet service to paid subscribers while including free public access network-wide. This hands-on experience gives WiFi-NY insight into how to scale and improve its model to include a wider area, covering more parks, gardens, and green spaces, as well as how to recover the costs associated with providing a free city-wide service.

The question of how to provide free wireless Internet to New York City's parks remains unanswered. What is a sustainable solution that brings the most benefit to the public, and works simultaneously as a viable business model to provide the revenues required to properly maintain and upgrade the network as technology advances and improves? The economics of how to achieve quality free wireless internet in NYC's parks have so far not been rectified by others who have tried for a variety of reasons. Sponsorship models that require free public access users to view an advertisement before connecting to the Internet have failed to materialize, mainly because the price per viewer is too high, compared to bus or subway ads. For example, the most popular outdoor wireless hotspot has been Bryant Park where no more than 250 users per day have logged in. The sponsors of that service are at a net loss for their advertising dollars by providing the free service to Bryant Park. The use of free wireless in the parks is seasonal and weather-dependent. Any wireless infrastructure worth building must operate year-round, 24 hours, 7 days per week, in all weather conditions. This further reduces the ad dollar/viewer ratio even further since the service must continue to operate even when nobody is in the park to use it. Direct advertising as a way of sponsoring free wireless is an expensive and cost prohibitive proposition, and in itself is not a viable way to fund free wireless Internet in the parks at this time, and for as long as the number of users remains relatively small.

WiFi-NY launched the GREENlined for WiFi!* campaign as one such creative solution to fundraising to support free wireless in NYC parks and public spaces.
(see how you can support GREENlined for WiFi!* by purchasing a PixelAD)