Feature Req: Internet connection / WiFi Network

[ghost]

I would like to propose Internet connection and the more specific WiFi Network.

WiFi is getting more and more important on the web:

• Facebook is collecting data through the App and its "Facebook WiFi" project.
• TripAdvisor and Foursquare could show WiFi information on Restaurants and Hotels (many people already write wifi passwords in comments)
• Google is already asking users to fulfill venues information to show them in Google Places.
• Airbnb could show the network available in each apartment.
• Many websites with "free wifi" maps (like Wifisharing.co) are already available on internet.

Here is my proposal:

Item:

Thing > Internet Connection > WiFi Network

Properties:

- BSSID / MAC Address
- ESSID
- Protocols (a/b/g/n/ac)
- Channel
- Encryption (Open / WEP / WPA...)

Inherited from "Internet Connection":
- Upload speed
- Download speed
- Pricing (Free / Paid)
- Geo (https://schema.org/GeoCoordinates)
- Provider (https://schema.org/Corporation)

Inherited from "Thing":
- URL (https://schema.org/url)

Can be a Property of:

Thing > Place
Thing > Product > Accomodation

What do you think?

[danbri]

There are a couple of angles here. One is the view from place / local business 'features', e.g. where you say that a hotel offers wifi, has a bar, or whatever. One way or another we will bulk out our offering in that area, and I'm sure Wifi will naturally be covered. The other is the "Internet of Things" view, which gets closer to specific technical parameters of an individual network. There are some preliminary explorations of schema.org in that setting bubbling under (e.g. see https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-of-things/2016Jun/0021.html ) but I'm not sure we'll want to get too technical in our wifi descriptions there, without strong motivating usecases. But one way or another I think we'll do something!

[ghost]

Thanks for your reply, Dan. I understand your point of view and i totally agree with that. I hadn't thought about the "Internet of Things" field, but it could be interesting to develop. I simply got the idea by thinking about places / local business which more and more often offer free wifi to their customers. For that use case the "Internet connection" parent item could be unnecessary, as well as some technical details about the connection itself, although i would definitely keep wifi name, download speed, geo and pricing. I look forward to see this item available as part of schema.org vocabulary!

[maxencehenneron]

@danbri I currently have a use case for this, in order to geolocate devices using the wifi MAC address. I definitely think this should be part of schema.org, at least in the "iot" ontology. Or in both. Schema.org could have a "Hotspot" class and iot.schema.org a "WifiNetwork" or something similar

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is being tagged as Stale due to inactivity.

[danbri]

tagging this for the ideas/brainstorming repo so it doesn't get lost in the archives

[WeaverStever]

This might be of interest to the vCard discussion elsewhere?

Instead of having the customer request the current password from the establishment personnel, (s)he requests the current wifi settings via email. The establishment gets an email address for their marketing purposes and the customer gets hot wifi, pre-configured for when they arrive.

Alternately, some establishments may want to advertise wifi = none for people who want to get away for a while.

[RichardWallis]

See issue #7 for the context of the move from the main Schema.org issue tracker to this repository.