Blogs The Free Wi-Fi Myth

Luqa Airport (Malta International) and many of the big hotels in Malta have free open wifi. It's one of the few places where I bother to carry my netbook around for leisure use as I know I can log on almost anywhere in the tourist areas.

 

tell me about it - BTopenzone does about £5.00-5.50 for 90mins-1hr

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reguarding the 'free-wifi' I have been to pubs that do exactly the same thing - they say 'free-wifi' but you still need to pay for your usage. its free in every sense as it is to connect to the 'free-wifi' but you need to pay to go anywhere else other the the hosts homepage that tells you, you must pay.

its just blatant false advertising. as for wi-fi on trains...it should be free for EVERYONE. ticket prices alone are extortionate compared to many other countries. and to top it off the trains arent even punctual and are often late or cancelled at very short notice. the service aint great but giving customers/travelers free wifi to use while in transit might not fix the problems that plague the rail companies, but at least it would be a start to show that they are indeed interested in giving customers value for money on price of the ticket instead of charging us stupid amounts to feed the companies fat cats.

there should be a voucher code printed on your rail ticket which you can use to claim an hour or unlimited free wifi.

I could argue about this all day but thats best left for another thread,

 

I travelled with GNER and they offered free wifi and it was, you had to give your email i think but that was it.
P.S i wasn't in first class

 

The biggest problem with this is that even if you pay, or even if you sign up to one of the networks that offer multiple locations, there's so many of them that you'll pay £extortionate for a month's access then the next place you go, it'll be some other outfit. You'd end up paying hundreds of pounds a month for it if you signed up to them all.

The situation really is a complete disaster and I have never paid for wifi anywhere as a direct result.

 

If you really were in a pinch and really needed to use the internet most hotels have wifi, but they tend to be very slow.


To my own surprise most sit-down restaurants have wifi too and most are unencrypted

 

To people who think you get what you pay for: it's not necessarily true. I was in Amsterdam earlier this year, at an industry conference, and a bunch of us speakers were put up in a hotel in the centre. Wifi was something like 9 EUR/day for their "unlimited premium" version.

Download rates were perhaps 50K/sec, max., more usually hovering around 10K/sec. That's what you get when you have a single 4Mbit or so connection shared among a bunch of people who actually use the net.

 

Both my local, favourite pubs have genuine free wifi.
So does my favourite coffee shop!
I'm a very lucky boy.

 

Must admit the only usable 'free' WiFi i've ever found when out and about is unsecured residential connections.

'free' wifi i've come across recently:
Local pub - free but secured by password. None of the staff knew said password, leaflets on the tables say to ask staff for the password
Pub whilst on holiday - claimed was free, turns out this was free only to o2 customers
Restaurant whilst on holiday - free, but needed to sign up to login, signup page was broken.

All a moot point anyway, unless repealed, clauses in the DE bill will effectively outlaw free WiFi

 

Here in the US, the last road trip I took, we stayed at a different cheap motel every night and they all had free wifi, all you'd have to do is when you open the browser you have to accept the terms of service (never read it but probably says something about not using for this and that purpose), just click okay and your off. Actually, we tried in the parking lot before going in and one of the motels we went to it required a passcode... we went to the next motel. They lost business for that. Free wifi is a Big selling point for me to spend money at one place vs another.

 

I travel by eastcoast line From Dundee-Kings Cross. Internet on it is free though pathetic for even youtube streams, it is enough for chat and emails.

 

Both ISPs offer access to hotspots placed in non residential areas that allow you to access them with your ISP provided email. Otherwise android 2.2 will come with built in wifi tethering which should serve my purposes well provided Verizon doesn't disable it.

 

Places around me in NY

- College, requires a student log-in or guest log-in (available from the helpdesk folks)
- Starbucks- free wifi 24/7, but it's creepy sitting in their parking lot at night just to read an email
- Au Bon Pain
- McDonalds
- Local PD of all places...

 

wow security breach much?

 

We should all remember this when in the future being connected to the internet is mandatory...

 

Sheesh! you do realize I was joking right?

Lol!

 

The advertised free wifi only being free in first class isnt something new.

Theres a ton of adverts on TV offering various things, and not one mentions any limitations in the voice parts. They always talk as if its available to everyone.

 

I regularly pop in to McDonalds for a coffee and a free wifi connection. I notice that burger king are now offering the same but with a few too many questions on the log on page for my liking.
On the road you can get free wifi at Roadchef and Extra services.
For me the most annoying are the far too expensive charges in hotels. You really are a captive audience there. So if staying away off work more than 1 or 2 nights I now rent a fully serviced flat instead.

 

Interested in why you think that, though I'm guessing it is from my lack of explanation. That, or you mean the police department having unsecured wifi.

Guest keys only work on 1 of the school's networks, which is not campus wide, it is only present in the admin building, student services (where people sign up for classes), and the cafeteria/theater building, which also has the meeting rooms.

Student keys work only on the student network, which is campus-wide.

 

I'll admit I don't own a laptop myself, or any device capable of connecting to WiFi with the exception of my DS which I never need to connect with. As such, there may have been many places I've been to that offered free WiFi, but the only one that was advertised was at college. Unprotected for internet access, students can login to access school network. Sadly, the only hotspots are in the center of the campus to keep people from using it at home. Problem is, the building with most of my classes is right on the edge and loses all connectivity once indoors.

 

"The 3G network is also prohibitively expensive for tourists or people coming to the UK for business - and yet the web's resources are often exactly what those people need to help them navigate the city. "

I managed to find my way around Hong Kong with nothing but a Rough Guide and some common sense. The web is nice to have when you're travelling, but it's not essential for getting around and never has been.