That's what I tell my electric coop, but they keep billing me anyway. 
Posted on 03/04/2007 4:29:27 AM PST by jalisco555
WI-FI service is quickly becoming the air-conditioning of the Internet age, enticing customers into restaurants and other public spaces in the same way that cold “advertising air” deliberately blasted out the open doors of air-conditioned theaters in the early 20th century to help sell tickets.
Today, hotspots are the new cold spots.
Starbucks became the most visible Wi-Fi-equipped national chain when it began offering the service in 2002. Now, at more than 5,100 stores, Starbucks offers Internet access “from the comfort of your favorite cozy chair.”
Before you pop open your laptop, however, you need to pull out your credit card. Starbucks and its partner, T-Mobile, charge $6 an hour for the “pay as you go” plan. Day passes or monthly subscriptions are available but can be used only at Starbucks stores and other T-Mobile partners like Borders bookstores.
McDonald’s offers Wi-Fi in more than 8,000 of its 13,700 stores in the United States, giving it wider reach than even Starbucks, and it also charges for access. McDonald’s doesn’t charge as much: it asks $2.95 for two hours. You can’t apply your T-Mobile subscription there, however, because McDonald’s works with other partners.
Metering and charging for a service, of course, is the prerogative of any business owner in a free market. One will always find entrepreneurs willing to try new ways to profit by erecting tollbooths in front of facilities that had been freely accessible.
In the past, this took the form of coin-operated locks on bathroom stalls. (You may have first encountered these at a moment when you were least ready to praise the inventor’s ingenuity.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Many folks at my office have WiFi stock. Some bought and sold and made some good money. I just don't have that kind of guts. lol.
From article:
"The palace’s spiritual successor is the cafe that sends out a welcoming blast of free, unlimited Wi-Fi"
The successor to the movie palace is more likely the shopping mall.
Has Starbucks always charged for wifi?
I've never been in a Starbucks, but with all the hoopla I've always heard about it's wifi, I had no idea they charged for it. Dummy me.
Free WiFi in the Guatemala City airport, free WiFi everywhere in Antigua.
Never did I have to pay a centavo for access. Usually, there were unprotected networks, tons of them, avaiable for poaching.
It's a come-on used to attract customers to hotels, restaurants and bars. And, it works!
For the price of a wireless router, $50, a small business owner can offer a service that people have come to, not expect, but demand.
Nowhere on their website did I see any place where it listed the cost of an iPass.
Ditto that. A difficult website to get any usable information from.
One of my pet peeves is being charged for WiFi when I'm stuck in an airport terminal, particularly when my flight is delayed. A great example of a business exploiting a captive population. It really annoys me.
I have a notebook with the Verizon Wireless Broadband service.. I can pretty much connect anywhere with decent bandwidth (latency is a little high at times). My company pays for it though..
The individual accounts are obtained through resellers, who should have their rates on their web sites. There are only eleven of them in the U.S. Click the "Reseller Locator" link to get the list.
My second pet peeve is the lack of receptacles to plug into to charge my laptop. The ones that are there are typically located in places that force you to sit on the floor. But to charge 2 bucks to use one, like the article says DFW is considering, is just plain evil.
A good choice for business people that spend a lot of time in hotels that charge for broadband. Pricey for the casual user, though.
Charging for electricity is ridiculous. Most of us, if we have our laptops up and running and can get wifi, will sit any place happily for hours. With all the delays when travelling now, you'd think the airports would want to encourage something that kept people relatively calm and entertained when stuck there.
The point about this being a freebie is well taken. We have a nearby small city called Stevenson, WA, that offers free Wi-Fi, you just have to start from a homepage that lists city businesses. A lot of folks would just drive on through, otherwise.
So what is a good thing to order at Panera?
Caribou Coffee, which unfortunately, is almost as liberal as Starbucks, provides the first hour free. That seems like a reasonable compromise.
That's what I tell my electric coop, but they keep billing me anyway.
jalisco555 posted:
"Get an iPass account and you can use the WiFi in every McDondald's and Starbucks in the country. It also works at just about every airport, good hotel, and most major chain bookstores. Plus, there's a local dial access line from just about everywhere."
Would have appreciated links; I wasted time to get the ridiculous pricing for that service, that should be free, like air conditioning in a business.
Cinnamon crunch bagels.
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