WebWorkerDaily has a nice round up post of USA based franchise and chain retail eateries and bookstores that offer WiFi, albeit for a price. But beware, all WiFi is not created equally.
For example T-Mobile, which is found in Starbucks, Barnes and Noble and Borders book shops, as well as many hotels and airline clubs, brings excessive amounts of bandwidth into their hotspots and on most occasions I'm finding speeds of 1 meg or more in both directions. On the other hand, Panera usually provides no more than 384 on the download.
Recently Bruggers Bagels added WiFi in their locations, but the speeds were a paltry 256k in both directions, but hey, it was free. Others like Cosi went with SipandSurf, but here again, the speeds are not as close as those from T-Mobile. On the other hand Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf uses AT&T which is mostly a Wayport network has rock solid speeds and their locations tend to be less crowded and offer better coffee than Starbucks. What's more you can roam using Boingo just as you can at Sip and Surf locations.
All in all, the choices for Working Anywhere are on the rise and getting better all the time.
A site that list places with free WiFi is at http://www.openwifispots.com
Posted by: Tom Sanders | June 22, 2007 at 02:34 PM