Tuesday, December 25, 2007

A call for cheaper public wifi

We're staying at a nice hotel for xmas. The kids and I can't live without our internet fix for even 24 hours - is that addiction?

The internet is available here (Sydney) but only via an ethernet socket and it's AU$30 per day!

While I'm away, it's the Asus EEE PC for me, while my daughter in the next room has a PowerPC iBook running Tiger.

Obvious solution: plug the iBook into the wall ethernet, system preferences, sharing, internet tab, share internet connection over Airport - works really well. (Don't forget to adjust power management to avoid sleeping while plugged in).

While I'm on this topic, why don't cafes have free wifi? I've seen it in one cafe using an Unwired connection. This is presumably a very easy to deploy solution, an unwired (pre-WiMax I think) modem and a wireless router to share it in the cafe. Surely whatever the cost of this to the business would be outweighed by the extra sales to people staying longer to use the internet.

Finally, if we must use a commercial Wifi connection, provided by the same people that provide our home connections (Optus, Telstra) then why can't we log in with the account we already have at home?

Anyway, enough moaning from me, merry Xmas.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your blog post came up in my Google alert for Wi-Fi. My site - http://www.wififreespot.com/aus.html - lists some locations with Free Wi-Fi in Sydney. I'm sure there are more cafes as well that I haven't heard of.

ben said...

There's free wifi in Greenwood Plaza, North Sydney? I've seen lots of wifi networks in there but no free ones.

Peter Marks said...

Hmm, yes, maybe they mean "free" of a WEP or WPA password?