Buddy, can you spare a hotspot?
Comments: 10
I’m writing this in the Dubliner’s pseudo-Irish pub in Toranomon, into which I ducked to set up wireless access I purchased ahead of a meeting and dinner tonight (and for a quick half of Guinness). 24-hour access — a 1-day passport they call it — costs ¥500 and is good for 24 hours from the time of your first login.
This is a far cry from walking into Fujimamas, say, opening the laptop, being asked if you want to join their open network, clicking OK and then checking your e-mail. But it works, and ¥500 isn’t much to pay for a proof-of-concept experience. It would stick in my craw to have to pay for this on a regular basis, but of course, that’s what’s going to have to happen. There are a couple of competing services already widespread and divvying up the cafés, bars, hotels and airports. A digital divide of a different kind.
Anyway, off to my meeting.
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Posted to Computers • 2005.01.12 (Wed) • 19:38
Comments
Posted by Stefan 2005.01.13, 00:22
Here in Germany, there are a few who offer free wireless broadband access as part of their restaurant concept to attract customers. But the beer is much more expensive there. (you can surf in your car in front of the restaurant though) ;-)
Posted by eliot 2005.01.13, 01:18
T-Mobile here in the US has partenered with Starbucks, so you can pay by the day or buy a monthly subscription. Your account works at all T-Mobile “hot spots”. Unfortunatly, most airports I’ve been to are not T-Mobile powered and I haven’t really found any other useful hot spots. I visit my local coffee shop way more than Starbucks, so it doesn’t really help me there either.
Ah, how I long for the day of wireless broadband everywhere. Verizon has pretty good coverage in my area with 3G and EV-DO, but it is $80/month and coverage is spotty across the states. I might still give it a try.
Then again, maybe I’ll be come a luddite.
Posted by Alex 2005.01.13, 03:22
I can only find one hotspot available in Fukushima, at Seattle’s Best Coffee. Incidentally, Seattle’s Best Coffee is in fact not Seattle’s best coffee.
Posted by j. brotherlove 2005.01.13, 03:30
In Atlanta, a local IT company offers free wireless Internet access at over 40 locations [http://www.3rdwavehotspot.com/]. Apparently, I fit their demographic because several of my favorite haunts have the service. I can putz around the city all day and grab a connection.
Posted by Adam Rice 2005.01.13, 05:37
It doesn’t need to happen that way. If a business already has broadband flowing in, distributing it over wifi for free costs them another US$50 or so for the AP. They can try to make that into a profit center, but the additional cost of setting up a billing system raises the break-even point considerably.
Most coffee shops here (Austin TX) have free wifi, although it doesn’t always work very well. Many restaurants do. I know that at least one titty bar does (because it says so on their marquee, which I noticed as I drove past). In short, it seems that any place that expects its customers to be sitting around for a while is now providing free wifi as a matter of course, and it can almost be taken for granted.
Obviously there’s a different zeitgeist in Tokyo, and there may be regulatory issues making this more problematic. But if, say, Dotour started offering free wifi, it would be harder for all those other places to justify charging for it. Doesn’t Mosburger have free wifi?
Posted by mark 2005.01.13, 09:54
Mos Burger’s wifi is free, though I think you need to be a YahooBB subscriber. Some MacDonalds were offering wifi (YahooBB) a year or so ago, I wonder what happened to that.
Posted by seth 2005.01.13, 15:57
I think the trend is already moving towards free wi-fi, not the other way.
Most establishments need an internet connection of some kind, and getting broadband is becoming easier and cheaper. As Adam points out, the leap to Wi-Fi for them is negligible. However, I think the associated costs go beyond $50 for the access point. Most have to have some proxy in place that serves you an “I agree not to hack into Microsoft or distribute kiddie porn while on your network” before you can get on. Also, there is undoubtedly some maintence and support they need to pay for.
That being said, it is still relatively cheap, and will attract customers. Recently, while staying at a dial-up-only house in Ohio, my girlfriend and I would drive 20 minutes to go to Panera Bread cafe to use their free wi-fi. Without the wi-fi we would not have gone. As a result, we both spent about $10 on food/coffee there, per 2-hour visit.
As more and more people ahev wireless laptops, PDAs, etc, they will want to frequent establishments that offer free service.
My prediction is that pay-per-play ” internet cafes” go away, and free wi-fi will be available almost everywhere.
Posted by Jeff 2005.01.14, 03:49
Here in the States check out WiFi Freespot for a list of free wifi access points.
Alex, I would agree, Seattle’s Best isn’t.
Posted by Mike Kewthrey 2005.01.16, 18:54
Without non-dialup access you would not have gone to (unspecified place)?
Are people really slaves to the Internet like that?
Posted by Andrew 2006.04.18, 14:50
One day, I ran into a coffee shop. The owner told me they have a HotSpot. Pointing to a black box. They told me to insert 3 euro to it and the little printer by it print me a slip. On it I found a Password and URL address. I surf for an hour and it cost me only 3 metal. Good!
I also found on the slip it has a web site name. I guess it is the provider or something www.com2000.com.hk
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