Wherefore art thou free wi-fi?
15.01.2008 from Phil
If you believe the gadget gurus, we should all be constantly hooked up to the ‘wi-fi cloud’ by now, accessing our email as we walk our dogs round the park and downloading music and TV shows to our handhelds without even having to think about it. But, then again, we were promised jetpacks as well, and what ever happened to them?
Sure, if you’re in London then finding some free wi-fi to plug in to isn’t a terribly difficult task, you just take a look at this list of free wi-fi spots or do a search for the wi-fi tag in London to find proof of that. But we’re nowhere near the kind of blanket coverage that cities like San Francisco get, and that’s before we even think about the rest of the country. We know Dublin was supposed to get free wi-fi for the whole city but fell foul of EU regulations, does anyone know any other UK areas that are ‘well connected’?
Right now it seems that a lot of the places on Qype that offer free wi-fi are the small, independent business who use it to entice punters in to their cafes or bookshops etc. But what about the big players, shouldn’t they be the first to offer us this kind of thing?
It would be great to know what Qypers views are on all of this. What’s the future of wi-fi? Where are your favourite free wi-fi spots? How difficult is it to get connected in your city? Let us know right here in our comments section, or on the discussion that’s going on over here.
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January 15th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
My favourite free wifi spot is Upper Street, Islington. The tech mile is now over 4km. Good on the Islington council for taking the initiative. Come on Lambeth! Get your act together!
January 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
By the way, how are FON doing in the UK?
January 17th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I have tried a number of places for free wifi and I work in the West End
Leicester Square free wifi was non existent
Foyles Jazz bar - wasn’t working when I went in, Royal Festival Hall - not working when I went in, so tried BFI restaurant down the road - it did work and they gave me a password for it, but connection was wobbly. Grotty internet cafe on Charing Cross Road - worked, but you had to buy some coffee. Yesterday I went into the Apple Store on Regent Street as I’d given up trying on all the ones in cafes.
I hoped it would be the best place - it was although I felt like a outcast with my IBM ThinkPad, plus they have loads of Apple lap tops.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Coffee@ on Brick Lane (either of them) gets my vote. Free wifi (if you have your own laptop) and the most chilled out atmosphere you can imagine in which to tap away.
Actually the area’s full of it - LCB Surf on Bethnal Green Rd is a great place too. And both excellent coffee.
The smaller places tend to be the ones offering it but if the biggies did too we might miss all these little gems and head straight for the obvious places.