Free Wireless Internet Access at Dana Street Roasting Company

A LIVE555 Neighborhood Network Mountain View's best coffee house - "Dana Street Roasting Company" (744 Dana St., between Castro & Hope [N37.39236,W122.07904]) - now has a SDSL Internet connection, with an attached wireless LAN. If you have a laptop with a 802.11b (aka. "WiFi") wireless network interface, you can use this to surf the Internet while enjoying your coffee.

How to connect to the network

The network name (SSID) to use is "LIVE555" (without the quotes, and all upper-case). The network uses channel (frequency) number 8. In your network TCP/IP 'control panel', you should not enter an IP address. Instead, you should check the "Obtain an IP address from a DHCP server" button. Nor do you need to enter a DNS server. (The base station has DHCP and DNS servers.)

Mail and News servers

A Usenet news server (NNTP) is also available, at "news.danastreet.live555.com".

Frequently Asked Questions

This is great, but why did you do this?

As a regular customer of "Dana Street Roasting Company" who enjoys reading/answering my voluminous email while sitting there, I wanted a better wireless link than Ricochet (which no longer exists anymore anyway). I plan to use this as a test site for software and hardware being developed by my company Live Networks, Inc..

Is it really free? What's the catch?

In the future, additional, enhanced Internet services might also be made available, for a fee.

You mean I can just walk in and use the wireless Internet connection? Don't I have to register or something?

Please don't abuse this (e.g., by doing something nasty like sending spam). If you do, you'll be blacklisted from this and any future LIVE555 neighborhood networks.

Does the coffee shop have any power outlets where I can plug in my laptop?

I don't have a wireless LAN card, but I do have a traditional (wired) Ethernet interface. Can I access the Internet using this instead?

Does the network provide real IP addresses, or do you use NAT? Also, am I behind a firewall?

What about security? Could other people on the wireless network see my packets?

(For Windows users, two good SSH clients are "SecureCRT" and "PuTTY")

Note also that, because there's no firewall, your laptop is potentially exposed to anyone else on the Internet. In short, you are responsible for the security of your own system.

What's your Privacy Policy?

The only information we record about you is the MAC (i.e., wireless Ethernet) address of your wireless LAN card, and the time(s) that it connects to the network. (This information is obtained from DHCP lease records, and is used for statistical analysis.) We do not know - and therefore, keep no records of - your name or email address.

What more should I know about this service?

What kind of access statistics do you keep?

Does the network support IPv6, as well as IPv4?

You can test this IPv6 connectivity by running (for example) from a console window:

ping6 www.kame.net

Can you tell me more about the wireless base station?

That seems rather heavyweight. Why didn't you use a dedicated WaveLAN router, like Apple's "AirPort"?

What sort of "enhanced services" might these be?

Bandwidth guarantees

Web caching

Enhanced multicast support (including "source-specific multicast")

...

Ross Finlayson

LIVE555