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American Morning

Wi-Fi: Will it Replace Traditional Internet Providers?

Aired August 12, 2003 - 09:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you have a computer. You may even have a laptop or PDA. So the question is do you have wi-fi capability? Tech TV expert Leo Laporte joins us now to tell us how to use them, where to get them and what to do to keep your information safe. Hello, welcome.
LEO LAPORTE, TECH TV: Hey, Daryn.

KAGAN: First of all, wi-fi, what is it and why do I want it?

LAPORTE: I guess they're playing off hi-fi. It's wireless fidelity. It's wireless networking. So it lets you connect all of your devices with out any -- see, there's no wires.

KAGAN: No wires, no big spaghetti like I have on my desk at home.

LAPORTE: What you don't know, if you look around is there's wi- fi signals everywhere all the way around us. In fact, on your anchor desk you notice there's no wires. How do they do that? You have a little wi-fi card in your laptops.

KAGAN: Funny how that works.

Now if I'm at home what do I need to buy? How much is it going to cost me?

LAPORTE: This is what gets you started. This a wi-fi base station. This is a Linksys, it's about $60 now. You plug it into your cable modem or your DSL modem and then these little antenna broadcast the signal to all the other computers. You also have you to hook up your computers with a wi-fi adapter. Your laptops have a PC card adapter that sticks out the side. This is for desktops. You can use it with a laptop, too.

KAGAN: How much is it going to cost me?

LAPORTE: That's $60, this is $40 per computer to connect it. This connects via USB.

What's great is once you've wi-fi enabled a device you can go out in the real world and get online almost anywhere. That's really a revolution.

KAGAN: Really?

LAPORTE: It's not just for laptops, too. This is a PDA with a wi-fi card that goes in it. This is the newest from Sony. And this is probably the trend. This is the Sony Clie. Look at that. You can put that -- it's a little laptop computer can you put in your purse. Don't you love that?

KAGAN: That's nice.

LAPORTE: See my wife wants that. She says, That's finally a computer that fits in my purse. And this has wi-fi built into it, as most new laptops do. If you get one that says the Intel Centrino, it's got wi-fi built in. This Apple Macintosh has wi-fi built in.

KAGAN: Now just to explain a little bit. So if I'm going to have this in my laptop, you say I can take it out into the world, I can take it to a coffee shop? I can take it...

LAPORTE: That's what's amazing. These things are called "hot spots." They're commercial wi-fi points. So if you go to a Starbucks, if you go to McDonald's in ten cities across this country, you buy a Big Mac, they'll give you an hour of Internet access. You sit there with your laptop and you're online in the McDonald's...

KAGAN: Right there.

LAPORTE: Right there. Coffee shops are doing it, gas stations, airports are doing it. Even cities. Aspen has wired the entire city for free. So you don't need an Internet service provider in Aspen. You just need a wi-fi card.

KAGAN: Really? Is that the wave of the future? Will we be doing away with Internet providers?

LAPORTE: I think it is. A lot of traditional Internet service providers are going to wireless. They're charging for it in the same that they would, you know, for wired service. But they're also philanthropists, altruists out there who are saying, I'm going to put wi-fi out and let anybody use it. These are called public wi-fi spots.

Bryant Park over here. You go over there, you're wired, free, surf all day, no cost. In fact I walked over to the studio here from Time's Square. And I ran a program on this called "Stumbler" which looks for wi-fi access points. I was able to find over 70 points in a seven-block walk.

Now there's an interesting thing to note here. Where it says yes, that means it's encrypted, it's protected. Nobody can get in.

KAGAN: Well, that's my next question because privacy, all these bits of information flying through the air. You know my PDA, I have Bill Hemmer's personal home information, phone number.

LAPORTE: Wait, let me see if that off.

(LAUGHTER)

KAGAN: Ladies of America are going to want that, but he's not going to want that to get out if I have a PDA. So how do you protect yourself?

LAPORTE: You're right. It's a big issue.

The ones that say no are unprotected wi-fi points. That mean very often I can get on somebody's network. They put one of these things in, the defaults on it are absolutely unprotected. You're public, you're broadcasting publicly. You may want to do that. But if you don't, then there are things you should do.

First of all, you should turn on the encryption that's built in. It's called WEP, Wired Equivalent Privacy. And that will give you at least some protection. It means that a casual snoop won't be able to see your data going back and forth.

KAGAN: Ways to protect yourself. If you're going to go in this direction, you should actually look into that kind of stuff.

LAPORTE: Turn on WEP, turn on the password, turn off the name. There are things you should do but the defaults won't do it automatically for you. So you should pay attention.

KAGAN: All right, we will look into it. A step into the future with Leo Laporte. Thank you, Leo.

LAPORTE: Thank you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired August 12, 2003 - 09:41   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you have a computer. You may even have a laptop or PDA. So the question is do you have wi-fi capability? Tech TV expert Leo Laporte joins us now to tell us how to use them, where to get them and what to do to keep your information safe. Hello, welcome.
LEO LAPORTE, TECH TV: Hey, Daryn.

KAGAN: First of all, wi-fi, what is it and why do I want it?

LAPORTE: I guess they're playing off hi-fi. It's wireless fidelity. It's wireless networking. So it lets you connect all of your devices with out any -- see, there's no wires.

KAGAN: No wires, no big spaghetti like I have on my desk at home.

LAPORTE: What you don't know, if you look around is there's wi- fi signals everywhere all the way around us. In fact, on your anchor desk you notice there's no wires. How do they do that? You have a little wi-fi card in your laptops.

KAGAN: Funny how that works.

Now if I'm at home what do I need to buy? How much is it going to cost me?

LAPORTE: This is what gets you started. This a wi-fi base station. This is a Linksys, it's about $60 now. You plug it into your cable modem or your DSL modem and then these little antenna broadcast the signal to all the other computers. You also have you to hook up your computers with a wi-fi adapter. Your laptops have a PC card adapter that sticks out the side. This is for desktops. You can use it with a laptop, too.

KAGAN: How much is it going to cost me?

LAPORTE: That's $60, this is $40 per computer to connect it. This connects via USB.

What's great is once you've wi-fi enabled a device you can go out in the real world and get online almost anywhere. That's really a revolution.

KAGAN: Really?

LAPORTE: It's not just for laptops, too. This is a PDA with a wi-fi card that goes in it. This is the newest from Sony. And this is probably the trend. This is the Sony Clie. Look at that. You can put that -- it's a little laptop computer can you put in your purse. Don't you love that?

KAGAN: That's nice.

LAPORTE: See my wife wants that. She says, That's finally a computer that fits in my purse. And this has wi-fi built into it, as most new laptops do. If you get one that says the Intel Centrino, it's got wi-fi built in. This Apple Macintosh has wi-fi built in.

KAGAN: Now just to explain a little bit. So if I'm going to have this in my laptop, you say I can take it out into the world, I can take it to a coffee shop? I can take it...

LAPORTE: That's what's amazing. These things are called "hot spots." They're commercial wi-fi points. So if you go to a Starbucks, if you go to McDonald's in ten cities across this country, you buy a Big Mac, they'll give you an hour of Internet access. You sit there with your laptop and you're online in the McDonald's...

KAGAN: Right there.

LAPORTE: Right there. Coffee shops are doing it, gas stations, airports are doing it. Even cities. Aspen has wired the entire city for free. So you don't need an Internet service provider in Aspen. You just need a wi-fi card.

KAGAN: Really? Is that the wave of the future? Will we be doing away with Internet providers?

LAPORTE: I think it is. A lot of traditional Internet service providers are going to wireless. They're charging for it in the same that they would, you know, for wired service. But they're also philanthropists, altruists out there who are saying, I'm going to put wi-fi out and let anybody use it. These are called public wi-fi spots.

Bryant Park over here. You go over there, you're wired, free, surf all day, no cost. In fact I walked over to the studio here from Time's Square. And I ran a program on this called "Stumbler" which looks for wi-fi access points. I was able to find over 70 points in a seven-block walk.

Now there's an interesting thing to note here. Where it says yes, that means it's encrypted, it's protected. Nobody can get in.

KAGAN: Well, that's my next question because privacy, all these bits of information flying through the air. You know my PDA, I have Bill Hemmer's personal home information, phone number.

LAPORTE: Wait, let me see if that off.

(LAUGHTER)

KAGAN: Ladies of America are going to want that, but he's not going to want that to get out if I have a PDA. So how do you protect yourself?

LAPORTE: You're right. It's a big issue.

The ones that say no are unprotected wi-fi points. That mean very often I can get on somebody's network. They put one of these things in, the defaults on it are absolutely unprotected. You're public, you're broadcasting publicly. You may want to do that. But if you don't, then there are things you should do.

First of all, you should turn on the encryption that's built in. It's called WEP, Wired Equivalent Privacy. And that will give you at least some protection. It means that a casual snoop won't be able to see your data going back and forth.

KAGAN: Ways to protect yourself. If you're going to go in this direction, you should actually look into that kind of stuff.

LAPORTE: Turn on WEP, turn on the password, turn off the name. There are things you should do but the defaults won't do it automatically for you. So you should pay attention.

KAGAN: All right, we will look into it. A step into the future with Leo Laporte. Thank you, Leo.

LAPORTE: Thank you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com