U.K. cities to get blanket Wi-Fi coverage

[lobster]

wifi could be owned by the goverment similar to the tv licence, they would be less dropped connection because the goverment would be responsible to the populations complaints where as a company can just fob excuses after excuses.

We already have free internet at libaries, the only objections is proberly from the LARGE BUISNESS community who rely on a enormous profits, these companies would hopefully be transferred to be part of the state internet in some way, so jobs would not be lost.

Thats my prediction for today

 

[Kid_Eternity]

State owned would be interesting although I can't see that happening. But the idea of it working like the TV license is a good one (I'd pay a bit more for wifi access in every city in the UK!)...

 

[pinkmonkey]

The prices look hugely expensive at £4.50 per hour. If your emails that important wouldn't you have a blackberry?

That's still half the price of most paying wifi I come across in airports and hotels - the going rate seems to be about £8 an hour.
There are ways round this (that I've found) - business class lounges often offer free wifi so if you find out where they are and position yourself as close to them as you can, you'll be able to take advantage of it.
I am getting a blackberry, but there are always instances where I need full internet acess on the run.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

That's still half the price of most paying wifi I come across in airports and hotels - the going rate seems to be about £8 an hour.
There are ways round this (that I've found) - business class lounges often offer free wifi so if you find out where they are and position yourself as close to them as you can, you'll be able to take advantage of it.
I am getting a blackberry, but there are always instances where I need full internet acess on the run.

Why a Blackberry and not something like an XDA or Treo?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Wasn't it Philly?

Yes, and a lot of other cities had the same idea. It started off just in a central area but they expanded it to cover much of the city centre. The phone companies kicked up a massive fuss, and are still trying to get it stopped. Excellent idea as far as I'm concerned - it's basic infrastructure and much more efficient to provide than individual lines to everyone's apartment.

The area where I lived used to be great for unprotected wifi anyway (it was outside the city zone). One of the companies, Verizon, was giving away free wifi routers with the standard package, so everyone with a new broadband contract was generating a new network, and most had no idea about setting security. I had my own but I wouldn't have needed it. Generally I found it a lot easier to sniff wifi in US cities than in London.

 

[UTJF]

However whenever I try to connect I get an error. Is this because there is no DHCP being run on the target net or have I missed something obvious?

Could be, or they may have MAC address filtering enabled.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Why a Blackberry and not something like an XDA or Treo?

Too expensive and inconvenient.

I often receive large attachments and I when I need 'away from home' access it's because I'm abroad. What seems like a good deal in the UK can be an absolute rip-off when you are abroad.

In November I was travelling with a client. I have a wifi enabled laptop and a 3G data card but there was a period of four days when I couldn't pick my email up. There was no 3G coverage and the hotel we stayed in was so full, there were so many people trying to access the (£25 a day ) wifi and in room broadband, the system couldn't cope. It was impossible. But my client used his blackberry and got all his emails.

When I can't get wifi, I use my data card. but its £7.50 a mb of download when I use it outside of the UK. Plus you can't guarantee the signal isn't going to drop suddenly when you are halfway through download of a 2mb attachment. When that happens its so frustrating, you've just wasted I dunno £10 or more and you've nothing to show for it!The blackberry software compresses attachments to about 4k each before it gets to your handset and that's all you pay to download. As the attachments are so small, theres less chance of it dropping a call and you lose everything.

I know lots of people who have them, they all travel a lot, they are all familiar with and own or have owned smartphones, pdas and other wifi enabled gadgetry but they all prefer the blackberry. Its simple, unsexy but it works. Thats all I want. It comes tomorrow.

And I really dont want another phone bill for £300 so for me its the way to go. If I only have to use the 3G card or wifi to send work off when I'm travelling and use the blackberry for everything else, I'm hoping it will save me some time and money.