Gentlemen, start your...

Now that we finally have at least a couple of hotspots in the most underserved of Kansas City, Missouri's neighborhoods-even if they're only available part of the time and provide only partial Internet access at that-I felt it was time once more for us to cast our eyes westward and see how things are coming along in that other void-Wyandotte County. Sadly, at least in the eastern part, they aren't coming along too well. I stopped in at both the main and West Wyandotte branches of the KCK Public Library to see if the Wi-Fi bug had perhaps bitten yet. At the main location my finder was greeted by only a few encryption-secured access points. (Memo to the library and school district IT departments: If you don't want someone a little less conscientious than me coming around to try and break into these networks, you might start thinking about upgrading your encryption and for heaven's sake, hiding those SSIDs!) West Wyandotte, however, was as cold as a tomb as far as detectable wireless activity was concerned. (Another memo to the aforementioned IT departments: If you do have a wireless network at West Wyandotte for staff use only, that's how it should look to an outsider.)

As I've mentioned before, I think the best thing that could happen to jumpstart public Wi-Fi throughout Wyandotte County would be for the library to take the lead, unwiring at least West Wyandotte if not the main location as well. The West Wyandotte building is only two decades old; one is tempted to ask why it isn't lit up already. Frankly, though, the library system is so far behind the Wi-Fi curve and the need in its community so great, that I feel they really ought to just go whole hog and unwire all three of their locations. A city as big as Kansas City, Kansas with no wireless access in its libraries is rapidly becoming an anachronism.

And I'm sorry to report that upon venturing further west, I was able to confirm that the McDonald's restaurant in the Legends Shopping Center at 106th and Parallel has indeed thrown in the towel on its free access and become a Wayport/AT&T play-for-pay outlet. So...since I was already in the neighborhood, I decided to check out the other reports of this strange phenomenon called free and open Wi-Fi in the vicinity of the Kansas Speedway, and do you know what? They're true-or at least two of them are.

Yard House Restaurant
1863 Village West Parkway (Suite 101)

802.11g
SSID: 101

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I have to admit that I didn't access this network from here. I did perform a walk-through of the building and asked a staff member to verify that this was their access point, and then moved on in search of other signals. I managed to find one emanating from a nearby establishment, but it wasn't free and open as those terms have been defined here (more on that later). Anyway, ol' 101 came banging through over there just fine-in fact, my finder also detected it at the nearby Cold Stone Creamery, which may have been the impetus for reports of Wi-Fi there.

As for the restaurant itself, it didn't look too laptop-friendly, but hey, what do you expect? It is a restaurant, after all. They do have an outdoor patio that may be a bit more conducive to your online experience, unless it's as hot out as it was today.

Scooter's Coffeehouse
Suite 103

802.11g
SSID: NETGEAR

From whence the erroneous reports of Wi-Fi at the nearby Planet Sub came. And upon looking around to spot the access point once I arrived at Scooter's it became obvious why. It's apparently mounted high up over a ceiling beam maybe fifteen feet off the floor. There's a blue wire that looks suspiciously like an Ethernet cable that comes out of a wall and snakes up above the beam, where it disappears. Fortunately, the height doesn't seem to adversely affect reception at floor level.

Power outlets? Look to the left as you come in and hope there's no one sitting by the pair on the wall where one of the refrigerators is plugged in-and that there's nothing plugged into the other outlet. And at least this outfit appears to have been in business long enough to know that pulling the shades on those big front windows can sometimes be an act of kindness to a laptop user.

Incidentally, Scooter's has other locations in Shawnee and Overland Park. The chain's website is mum on Wi-Fi issues, so finding out whether they're lit up as well is, for now, left to the reader as an exercise.

Now, about those other signals. There are at least a couple of restaurants in and around the Legends/Village West development with unencrypted access points, but connecting to them and trying to get onto the 'Net brings you to a page requesting a login and password. Whether these are play-for-pay, restricted to paying customers or not intended for public use at all I can't say since I didn't pursue the matter once I was challenged for credentials. Such locations are beyond the scope of this blog, so you're on your own if you want to find out more. Be forewarned, however, that both of these I saw are apparently trying to protect their login pages with self-signed certificates. Personally, I wouldn't touch a network set up like that with gloves on, because by accepting a self-signed certificate you could be setting yourself up for a man-in-the-middle attack.

And if I can have the attention of the management at Books-a-Million in Suite 135 at the Legends for a moment: Want to know how you can differentiate yourself from Those Other Two Giant Discount Bookstore Chains? Easy-light your dadburned stores up with Wi-Fi, only do Borders and Barnes & Noble one better and GIVE YOURS AWAY! You've got all the amenities the other guys have-a coffee bar, plush chairs all around conveniently next to power outlets, the whole nine yards. Why not set yourselves apart and give people a reason to spurn your competitors' more convenient Plaza and Johnson County locations and come out of their way to patronize yours? It's not like they don't need one. Have you checked out the price of gasoline lately?

This is the kind of forward-looking thinking needed to make what's going on in western Wyandotte County pay off in the end. Let's all hope it catches on and continues to spread-especially towards the east, where it is still so sorely lacking.