Complimentary park wide WiFi now available in the Magic Kingdom

spaceghost

spaceghost

Well-Known Member
JWG said:
If this operates at twice the speed of the free resort WiFi, we'll be clipping along at the speed of a 14.4k baud modem. Stellar. While I love the concept and wish they would do this as I do use my phone heavily in the parks for wait times and such, the resort internet issues are so horrendous that I'm not holding my breath they can figure out the parks.
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Yeah, if this is as slow as the wi-fi at Pop was last April, there's not much point in having it.
 
Patricia Melton

Patricia Melton

Well-Known Member
wiigirl said:
Nice!! That actually is an awesome idea....I wonder if it has anything to fo with all these park apps they have been putting out? :)

75.gif
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I think you are on to something. The free WiFi must be there so that guests can use all these new apps that are coming for the NextGen stuff.
 
Patricia Melton

Patricia Melton

Well-Known Member
ExtinctJenn said:
I work for one of the "big banks" in the US and happen to have our mobile product offers as a subject matter expert area. These days, there is very little risk in banking via a public hotspot, especially if you're using the mobile app provided by your bank. The way the information is passed over the network the chances of something happening are slim. Now that said, using a mobile browser is also just as safe but it's easier to find a way into. Your bank should have a mobile security gaurantee in place that protects you as well. :)

NOTE: These opinions are my personal opinions and are not associated in any way with the bank I work for. (we've been asked to say that whenever we reference our employment, even if not by name, so I'm being a good little employee).
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It's nice hearing this from an expert! Thanks for giving us the scoop!
 
monothingie

monothingie

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Premium Member
safaribob said:
A step in the right direction for the parks and guests. However, if I were in charge of IT for WDW (one of these days!), I would have engaged the various cell companies and worked with them to install LTE towers around the parks in a way that wouldn't ruin the views (i.e. the 3G cell tower right outside of DAK that was camouflaged to look like a tree). Let them have to deal with uptime, security and having enough bandwidth for thousands of guests.
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The benefit for TDO in implementing their own network is that they control the network. Unlike through working with a wireless provider. Also access points are cheap, (not your netgear junk) but enterprise grade components such as Cisco Unified Wireless Network components (which I would think they'd be using) which come in all different colors, shapes, designs, remote antenna heads, etc, and can easily be hidden.

Unlike your free Wifi at a Starbucks, large managed systems do constant self management and adjustment to ensure secure and reliable operation. My workplace uses the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to manage close to 1000+ APs in a large multi-building campus environment. The control appliance can automatically regulate AP power, usage, throughput to maximize network availability, coverage, and reliability. There are also features that detect any sort of security threats (sniffing, capturing, spoofing). So I think Disney probably has a very well engineered system.

Also consider the following, they are also using this system to piggyback their own internal POS / Admin network. So it's not just for the guests, and if there are financial transactions utilizing it, you bet that it is probably over engineered.
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
hakunamatata said:
This continued Walmarting of the parks must end.....
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Not good to steal the lines of others ... no matter how fitting they may be ...

I mean, really ... who the hell spends thousands of dollars to visit WDW and gives a damn about wi-fi in the parks? the same folks who likely talk about how removed they feel from the real world while under the Pixie Dusted arches (as opposed to say being at UNI) yet they must take themselves out of the moment to Tweet or update their FB status?!?!

Sorry to all who will be offended, but I just think that is nuts. And I'm a reasonably important Spirit who can still disconnect and not be checking email when walking around Liberty Square or the jungles of Harambe ... this addiction people have is just that.
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
TalkingHead said:
This definitely justifies the multi-annual ticket price hikes.

Wake me when an E-ticket opens.
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Do you mean anywhere ... like DL or UNI ... or HKDL ... or DSP ... or were you waiting on a WDW one?

'Cause you may wake up and find out all your friends and loved ones no longer exist ...
 
J

jaredliu

Active Member
I'll give Disney credit for this. You gotta find something for mom and dad to do while they are waiting on the couch of Dumbo circus tent.
 
pumpkin7

pumpkin7

Well-Known Member
i think this will come in handy next time we are in the parks. to be honest i don't like using my phone as it's so expensive, but the wifi would come in handy in organising my day. plus its going to enable me to keep in touch with my parents (going next time with hubby, mom and dad) so when we decide to split up for a bit we can organise meeting up easier.
 
dreamfinder

dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
NowInc said:
I'm pretty sure these networks will not be completely open. In fact I'd go as far as to say it will greatly limit the sites you CAN go to. This will help keep peoples data safe, as well as keep network speeds manageable.
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JWG said:
If this operates at twice the speed of the free resort WiFi, we'll be clipping along at the speed of a 14.4k baud modem. Stellar. While I love the concept and wish they would do this as I do use my phone heavily in the parks for wait times and such, the resort internet issues are so horrendous that I'm not holding my breath they can figure out the parks.
Click to expand...

I would be very surprised if they didn't have bandwidth tiering setup. Any internal corporate network gets the most bandwidth, especially since this sounds like what they will be using for NextGen iPad based troubleshooting. And then guest network would be setup to allow high speed use of the WDW servers needed for the NextGen initiative. So where ever they are hosting the data about wait times, fast passes, etc. And then a fairly throttled gateway to the rest of the internet. Much in the same way some airports/airlines work. Allowing you access to things like flight tracking, local weather etc, but either charging for, or only providing slow access to the rest of the WWW.

As far as actual blocking/filtering, that's a slippery slope. If someone can see that Disney has filtering in place, but doesn't filter a certain site, they now open themselves to claims of "WDW wasn't doing a good job blocking and my little Suzy stumbled onto a dirty picture". Or they filter something that shouldn't be. This is why lots of public libraries will fight the install of filtering software. It just opens a can of worms. Now if WDW happened to say slow down certain sites to 2400baud modem speeds (2.4 kbit/s, way slower than 14.4 most people think of as being slow) it would make them pretty much useless.
 
wdw71fan

wdw71fan

Well-Known Member
JCtheparrothead said:
I agree. I work in this field as well and the thought of 20,000 devices on a wireless network would keep me up at night. Hope the network team has lots of coffee.
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the system is designed to handle close to 114,000 connections property wide.. bandiwidth is measured at 3 meg upstream, 1 meg down..
 

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