Note: I tried to post this on Friday, but IE crashed while I was in the middle of posting it … I’ve switched to Firefox at both work and home.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is running a very interesting article on Free vs. Pay WiFi in Seattle’s coffee shops.
Personally, I refuse to pay for WiFi at commercial establishments … it’s just far too cheap for the vendor … and the price that gets charged is far beyond what I would consider even marginally reasonable.
In Boulder, while we were on our road trip we found a cute little coffee house that advertised WiFi internet access. Both Ginny and I were kind of starved for a ‘net fix, so we wandered down there. I asked how much it cost to connect, and the owner said it was free as long as we were customers. So, we got a couple of iced teas, some turkey wraps, and some yummy cookies, stat down at a table and started munching and surfing.
In fact, while we were on the road trip, most of the places we stayed did have (or were going to have soon) WiFi access. Even the Alps had wired and wireless access available for free. It kind of surprised me that they would provide such access, as they are a pretty romantic place, but it kind of makes sense … they also cater to the business meeting and retreat business.
The only place we actually paid for WiFi access was the Homestead Suites in Salt Lake … and that fee was only token ($5 for the entire stay). I think they charge the fee simply to justify requiring a userid & password. Since they are very near a popular pedestrian mall, it makes sense. They want to provide the service for their customers, not everyone who is walking by. Of course, the userid & password were quite trivial… and I’m sure they don’t get changed much if ever. My ownly gripe with that place was they told us about the WiFi, but didn’t indicate there was a charge for it. When Ginny called the front desk she was informed of the charge … and we just had them put it on our bill.
Even the Holiday Inn in Grand Island Nebraska had WiFi … unforunately, it wasn’t working in our section of the hotel. Not sure why. I asked the front desk if they could have someone reset the access point, but nobody knew how to do it.
Of course, since I have gobs of internet access at home and work, I really don’t need it at coffee houses … but it’s nice to know that it’s there.
I really like the Penera Bread Company in Schaumburg … they have good soup, sandwiches, and coffee… plus they have WiFi for free. I only used it once, but it was nice.
It would be nice if I could get WiFi access at work … then I could use my PDA to access resources while in meetings… but they have legitimate security concerns. I also think that I’m the only person who would use it.
