Shaw Wi-Fi Trial Well Underway

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Shaw Wi-Fi Trial Well Underway

Postby jon » Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:07 pm

Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary are already home to locations of Shaw's Wi-Fi Trial. There are over a dozen in Greater Vancouver.

More details here:
https://shaw.ca/WiFi/
including a map.

As for security, which has made a lot of headlines in the newspapers:
Open vs. Secure Wireless Networks

Open wireless allows all network traffic sent between your computer and your wireless access point to be viewed by all devices within the vicinity. Secure wireless is the safest option; it provides encryption of all the data transmitted between your computer and your wireless access point.

Apparently, the encryption is a bit on the weak side, though Security Experts estimate it would take an hour to break with top of the line computer equipment.

Just as I was going to post this, I noticed this interesting statement:
Any data used while connected to the Shaw WiFi Trial will contribute to the data included with the Internet package you subscribe to at home (i.e. Broadband 50). However, during the trial period, data usage will not count towards the data associated with your home Internet package.


Sound familiar? This is really the modern day equivalent of the original TELUS Alberta "Roaming Service". Buy their Broadband and you got 6 hours a month of dial-up included.
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Re: Shaw Wi-Fi Trial Well Underway

Postby TRENT310 » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:30 am

Yeah I did notice the Shaw SSIDs last month when I was wardriving.

As for security, any network that you do not fully manage end-to-end cannot be assumed to have total security. Don't send sensitive data over this service, or if you must, use appropriate methods to obscure the data (eg. VPN).

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Re: Shaw Wi-Fi Trial Well Underway

Postby jon » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:54 am

Not sure where I got the idea, but I thought Shaw was going to be using newer Wi-Fi technology and/or spectrum that provided much greater range, say a mile or so. But I'm not seeing any evidence of that in any of the Shaw descriptions of the new service.

Anybody actually checked the range? I tried "DX'ing" my closest one, about a mile away and "almost" line of sight from here, but no luck. Maybe I need a better antenna and receiver???
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Re: Shaw Wi-Fi Trial Well Underway

Postby PMC » Thu Jan 19, 2012 3:37 pm

Is there anything on 5 ghz ? Most stores that I visit are selling the dual band. I don't expect to see Shaw wifi here for awhile...
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