I thought I’d post this for those using wifi this year. My new laptop has built in wifi and an internal antenna. I have been using netstumbler to locate AP’s and then connecting with Windows XP. I have used this successfully since Feb., but mostly in populated areas, Omaha, Des Moines, Denver, and Minneapolis. The big question though, was how was this setup going to work in rural areas on the plains? Well I have made two trips now ( S cental and SE Nebraska) since last week and would have to say that this setup seems to work pretty well. I have found that along the interstates and major highways there is an AP at almost every exit. This works well as you can get fuel, food, and data in one stop. I have also found AP’s in every town I passed through that had a population of ~1200 or more. Towns with less than 1000 residents generally had no AP’s. One thing that I found very interesting was that some towns were virtually wide open, whereas others were locked up pretty tight. I can only assume that the “locked up†towns all had the same knowledgeable guy (or gal) installing the wifi systems. But for the most part I was very pleased. I was able to locate an AP usually in less that a couple of minutes retrieve data and be on my way. It won’t compare to an xm system, but it does provide better data than I’ve had in the past. I think with an external usb antenna (must add this to my wish list) things could only get better. One last thing, in the smaller towns I had better luck locating an AP in the residential area’s more than the business districts.
