The Wireless Island of Patmos

In the faraway chain of islands of the Dodecanese that lies in the Aegean Sea there exists the small and technologically innovative island of Patmos. Why has it gone wireless? It is all about a technological standard called 802.11, more felicitously known as Wi-Fi (for "wireless fidelity"). Conventional 802.11 networks have a range of no more than 100 meters, but by using a hodgepodge antennas, and other gear, the cutting edge technology team that has used Patmos as a pilot program has been able to stoke up the range of the base stations to more than 11 miles. Now people all over the island are tapping into this system as well as tourists arriving on yachts, surfing the Web at speeds as much as 100 times greater than standard modems permit. In the coming school year, high school teachers on Patmos and the surrounding islands are due to use the network for free to leapfrog a plodding state effort to wire schools. The technology team has built this network through an advanced coalition of educators and researchers and with the right equipment and passwords, anyone who wants to tap in can do so.

What do you need?
You need a laptop with WiFi connectivity (also called 802.11b). All laptops sold now to come with suitable wireless LAN adaptors pre-installed and ready to use. Large numbers of other laptops purchased recently are also likely to come 'WiFi-enabled'. Look for the WiFi logo on a sticker somewhere on your laptop. Macintosh users - Apple's WiFi network cards are branded as 'Airport' cards.
No special software is needed to use the Hotspot services - just a functioning web browser. 12Net are working on a version of the service with security enhancements, which will require additional software, but this is included by default with Windows 2000, XP and MacOS 10.2 and above.
Once your laptop is wireless-enabled, it should automatically detect the wireless hotspot network. If it does not, you will need to set your SSID (sometimes called the 'network identifier) to hotspot. The instructions for your wireless network card should explain how to do this. When you arrive in a hotspot, set your device to detect the network and start up your web browser. Then you can simply sign in using your 12Net Services username and password to gain access to the Internet.

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