Free Wi Fi Internet for Wodonga!

THOUSANDS of Wodonga residents and businesses will have access to free internet by May 22 2009 when the Wodonga Chamber of Commerce brings a new WiFi service to the city.

The deal with Sydney-based internet service provider myKP will see eight small radio receivers dotted around the city on landmarks such as the water tower and the roof of the council chambers.

These receivers will serve two-thirds of the city.

Capable of speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, shared across all users, the free wireless internet could save Wodonga families on or considering landline broadband services.

Wodonga is going to benefit because there will be some people who are not connected now to the internet, because of cost, who can be.
The WiFi system has no download limit but users will not be able to download movies or music and “inappropriate” sites are not accessible.
Free means free, and the service will be paid for via advertising support.

Director of myKP George Kaloudis said the wireless internet system had been set up in
10 areas, including Lane Cove Shopping Village in Sydney, Gilgandra town centre and all of Wilcannia.
Plans are under way to set up in 12 more, including the Melbourne and Brisbane CBDs.

When users log onto the site they will be asked to register for a username and password which they can then use when in any of the myKP hotspots across the country.

Wodonga communications broker TCS R Direct will handle service requests for the system and establish a troubleshooting hotline.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where will be covered?
On the day of release we will have radios located in the following places

· Chamber of Commerce building, High Street
· Council Building, Hovel Street
· Subway Store, High Street
· Continuing Education Centre, High Street
· Visitor Information Centre, Lincoln Causeway
· Elgin's, Melbourne Road
· McCrae Motors, Melbourne Road
· Border Mail Building, McCoy Street
· Federation Cellars, Fell timber creek road
· Wodonga Plant Farm, Beechworth Road
· Blazing Stump Hotel, Murray Valley Hwy

These sites will cover areas about 800 meters with handheld devices, but if you purchase external radios that plug into your computer, or a radio repeater then you should get reception in most areas in Wodonga. This will depend on several factors including local terrain, and structures surrounding your location.

The external radios recommended for the system are available from the three computer stores that are members of the chamber of commerce, those being Ashlin Computers (Wilson Street), Exact Computers (South Street), and Right choice Computers (At the big roundabout, High Street). The radios are also available from TCS R Direct (Liverpool lane, off the Safeway car park) who also offer the free phone support for the WiFi service on 026056 6699.

How do I connect?

If your computer has Wireless connection built in then you search for wireless networks. If you are able to see the “MyKP Free WiFi” network then double click on this.

Once you have connected, open an internet browser. You will automatically be connected to the login page of myKP that displays all the businesses advertising that are supporting this project.

If this is your first time connecting to the service then you will need to register your details. Click on register and choose a username and password, and fill in all the other parameters as these are required by the government for account activity. At no time will you be asked for account details or credit card details as this is a completely free for user service. Full terms and conditions are available on the site.

Once you have a user name and password then you can surf and send and receive emails as you wish.

Every night you will be bumped off at 12 midnight and will have to login again. This is to ensure that you will see the advertising that is paying for the service.

Advertising on the site, will it be intrusive?

The ads on the service are only on the front login page. This is the only advertising that will be on the system. There will be no popup screens of any type associated with the free service. Other popup screens could be incurred from sites visited, but are not part of this system.

You will be able to click onto each advertiser on the login page and retrieve information on their services without registering on the service.

All we do ask is that if you use the service that you support the businesses that have kindly advertised on the login page by purchasing their products. You are getting a service that is free because of them.

What can I do on the free service?

Most people will use the internet to send and receive emails, do a little surfing for information, go onto face book, MSN or Twitter etc. This will be fine to do.

The main restriction will be that you will not be able to download music, movies etc. through bit torrents, and you will be unable to visit inappropriate sites like pornography. There will also be some spamming sites that will be blocked by the system to restrict virus infection to the system.

Will it always be on?

The service will be on 99.9% of the time, but there will be times that it will have to be turned off for regular maintenance, and if a fault occurs then repairs will have to be made. Every effort will be made to keep the system up all the time.

Is it safe?

It is as safe as it can be. The system encrypts the information sent from and to your computer, and continually changes the encryption, so your information is safe. All computers that are on any internet connection are venerable to hackers out there, so we recommend that you have on your computer a good firewall installed, and virus protection.

How fast will it be?

This depends on how many people are on the network at the same time. The bandwidth (Speed) is shared over all the users that are downloading information at exactly the same time. This is why there are things like bit torrents that are banned from the service as this is a large drain on speed. With the system designed in such a way that it continually monitors itself, we will be informed if the overall speed drops on a regular basis to something that is unusable for all users. At this stage we will be adding bandwidth to the back end of the service to increase the overall available speed for everyone.

What if someone abuses the service and slows it down for everyone else?

We register the amount data used by all users, so if one user is excessively hogging the speed and making it bad for the others on the network, they will be notified, and if necessary removed from the system. With all the sites we have done, most people will comply with requests, and so far we have not banned anyone from our community services around Australia. They are aware of how valuable a free internet connection is.

I am a Business, how do I advertise on the service?

Firstly you need to become a member of the chamber of commerce by calling Rob Lucas, or Julia Fenech on 02 6056 8302. Once you become a member then you call TCS R Direct on 02 6056 8955 to discuss the various options available.

I have a question that has not been answered here, who do I ask?

All you need to do is call 02 6056 6699 during normal business hours. After hours call will be diverted to an answering machine where you can leave a message and someone will call you back in due course.