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If you need to be online as you travel around the UK, you may want to make Wales your destination.
A news account issued by Ofcom that appeared in Broadband Finder shows that Wales has more WiFi hotspots than any other country on a per million basis.
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Stayed there May 22-24, 2007
Price: 10 UK pounds for 24 hours
VoIP Quality: good
Video quality: good
Overall Grade B
Details here.
Posted by Esme Vos
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There's a lot to be said about the perils of jumping on a network that belongs to someone else.
In this case getting on a coffee shop's free network without being a patron of the coffee shop landed someone in a heap of trouble. Basically this is trespass laws being taken to the digital realm. In other jurisdictions the WiFi could have been deemed an attractive nuisance, but here it wasn't.
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Hotel Monty - Brussels, Belgium
Stayed there May 14-15
Broadband experience: network was very slow
Free
Grade C
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Stayed there April 28-30, 2007
Broadband experience B+
Free
Video worked well
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I have to admit, the Del Mar Marriott is in my hood and at times has been one of the best examples of broadband in a hotel I've ever had. You see I dine regularly at their award winning restaurant, Arterra, and the broadband has been amazing enough to have a SightSpeed video call.
But not tonight.
Grade D+
VPN Available: No
Speeds: Horrible
Signal Strength in Restaurant and Public Areas: Excellent
Supplier: Stay Online
Ironically I was one of the proponents of having WiFi at this hotel when my pal Steve Pagano was the GM. When they finally installed this it was heaven. Now its the opposite.
Andy Abramson
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This is an example of a very bad broadband experience. The supposed supplier is AT&T WiFi, previously called FreedomLink. The real supplier is Wayport according to the URL that shows up in the clear in my browser when it gets redirected.
Last week when I went in to grab a morning Espresso I tried to log on with my MacBook. I couldn't get passed the SSID. All I saw was the URL change then nothing. I tried all three browsers on the Mac Book. Safari. Camino and Firefox, all the latest builds.
I called support and got the kind of support person I hate. One that won't transfer you to a supervisor and one who thinks he knows it all. He tried to log me on from his side with the IP address I was pulling, still no joy.
Now, I've never had a problem getting on a Wayport or AT&T hotspot before either directly or using a Boingo account as a roamer. Seattle Tacoma Airport was the last place I remember using their service. I've even logged on before at this exact cafe.
End result and final grade: F --- for Failure.
What did I do? I went to Starbucks. The coffee's not as good, but the broadband always, always works.
Andy Abramson
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I woke up this morning to the scent and aroma of Illy wafting through the house. That got me thinking. More than hotels, many of us sip and surf on the run from coffee shops around the globe, getting online and grabbing a shot or latte, or simply, Caffe' Americano.
That got me thinking, after the warm, soothing Espresso jump started my brain. Why not have a coffee shop broadband experience blog also.
So, just like the HBE-Hotel Broadband Experience, here goes the coffee shop section.
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I have to give credit to WiredPlanet (now the Rhapsody player from Real) founder Thomas Hale for finding this mic so Ken Rutkowski and I can have better sounding World Technology Roundup when we're traveling the world over.
It is called the Blue Snowball and it works great, complete with awesome noise and echo canceling.
If you use Skype, Gizmo Project, iSoftphone or Counterpath's Eyebeam for VoIP or Skype or SightSpeed for video you're going to love your Blue Snowball, especially when you're working anywhere.
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Knowing your broadband speed is very helpful too, as well as the ability to use VoIP.
I tend to use two speed tests, as I believe that using the same reference test sites makes it easier to determine just what kind of experience you will have:
Cox Speed Test can be found at http://test.lvcm.com/
Visualware's VoIP Speed Test which is located at http://myvoipspeed.visualware.com/
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