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London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 10th, 2006, 12:25 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
Danglerb
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Posts: 32
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

Prices seem hard to pin down, but it looks like the hotel we plan to
stay in, Kings Cross Holiday Inn Express, which shouts about its wifi
in all the ads charges £9/hr for it. ;(

Its making me question my whole plan of taking a laptop with us on our
two week trip, as opposed to stopping in some kind of cybercafe and
using the system they provide for a halff hour or so to check email and
skip any game playing plans etc.

I did some searching with jiwire.com, and found something called Bingo,
but despite the monthly charge most locations also had a per minute
charge, and weren't really located conveniently to our travel.

Any ideas, opinions, or suggestions?

  #2  
Old July 10th, 2006, 12:42 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
David Johnstone
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Posts: 27
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

See my thread from a few weeks ago on exactly this subject.

When I was in London I used the free WLAN at Foyles Bookshop -
it was good, in the cafe there on the 1st (or 2nd?) floor. There's a
surface at the window specially for laptops and you don't really
even have to have a coffee or anything if you don't want to.

Though I think it'd hardly be worth taking a laptop just to check
occassional email. Easy Everything is also pretty cheap for
that.

David


Danglerb wrote:
Prices seem hard to pin down, but it looks like the hotel we plan to
stay in, Kings Cross Holiday Inn Express, which shouts about its wifi
in all the ads charges £9/hr for it. ;(

Its making me question my whole plan of taking a laptop with us on our
two week trip, as opposed to stopping in some kind of cybercafe and
using the system they provide for a halff hour or so to check email and
skip any game playing plans etc.

I did some searching with jiwire.com, and found something called Bingo,
but despite the monthly charge most locations also had a per minute
charge, and weren't really located conveniently to our travel.

Any ideas, opinions, or suggestions?


  #3  
Old July 10th, 2006, 06:07 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
Patrick Wallace
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Posts: 62
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

Up to you what you want to use the computer for, but if it's simply to
check emails and websites and maybe upload digital photos to storage,
use an internet café - no need to lug a machine around with all its
paraphernalia, no need to worry about keeping it safe.

PJW

On 10 Jul 2006 04:25:22 -0700, "Danglerb" wrote:

Prices seem hard to pin down, but it looks like the hotel we plan to
stay in, Kings Cross Holiday Inn Express, which shouts about its wifi
in all the ads charges =A39/hr for it. ;(

Its making me question my whole plan of taking a laptop with us on our
two week trip, as opposed to stopping in some kind of cybercafe and
using the system they provide for a halff hour or so to check email and
skip any game playing plans etc.

I did some searching with jiwire.com, and found something called Bingo,
but despite the monthly charge most locations also had a per minute
charge, and weren't really located conveniently to our travel.

Any ideas, opinions, or suggestions?


  #4  
Old July 10th, 2006, 09:00 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
Danglerb
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Posts: 32
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

We are all moderate net junkies, checking menus, shop hours and
locations, google earth, checking here to see about wifi, 3x many hour
a day habits all going cold turkey. Even if we do many many searches
before leaving and print them out, or stick them on the palm, we get
this disconnected feeling when we can't look for things we are used to.

I will be taking at least an old palm, M515, for games and books, but
its too old for wifi tricks I think. We will also be getting a new
laptop for our son to use this fall in school, so bumping the purchase
ahead a month and taking it with us seemed like a good option.

I will take a look at your thread.

Still really annoyed with Holiday Inn, L80 a night should have wifi
included.

  #5  
Old July 11th, 2006, 06:36 AM posted to rec.travel.europe
David Johnstone
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Posts: 27
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

Danglerb wrote:
We are all moderate net junkies, checking menus, shop hours and
locations, google earth, checking here to see about wifi, 3x many hour
a day habits all going cold turkey. Even if we do many many searches
before leaving and print them out, or stick them on the palm, we get
this disconnected feeling when we can't look for things we are used to.


Know the feeling :-)

I will be taking at least an old palm, M515, for games and books, but
its too old for wifi tricks I think. We will also be getting a new
laptop for our son to use this fall in school, so bumping the purchase
ahead a month and taking it with us seemed like a good option.


I have a cheapo PDA that I've upgraded to WLAN for travel with a WLAN
SD card; you need at least an SD (SDIO) or CF slot. It works well for
email, really light and compact and long battery life, screen a bit
small for surfing the net though. But of course there are other better
groups for technical stuff.


I will take a look at your thread.

Still really annoyed with Holiday Inn, L80 a night should have wifi
included.


Yeah, it ****es me off too when businesses like hotels and
restaurants expect *customers* to pay really high prices for WLAN.
The infrastructure costs are minimal for them. I was assuming
that you know sites like hotspot-locations.com where you can
search for well-known free hotspots?

David

  #6  
Old July 12th, 2006, 07:23 AM posted to rec.travel.europe
Danglerb
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Posts: 32
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?


David Johnstone wrote:
Danglerb wrote:
We are all moderate net junkies, checking menus, shop hours and
locations, google earth, checking here to see about wifi, 3x many hour
a day habits all going cold turkey. Even if we do many many searches
before leaving and print them out, or stick them on the palm, we get
this disconnected feeling when we can't look for things we are used to.


Know the feeling :-)

I will be taking at least an old palm, M515, for games and books, but
its too old for wifi tricks I think. We will also be getting a new
laptop for our son to use this fall in school, so bumping the purchase
ahead a month and taking it with us seemed like a good option.


I have a cheapo PDA that I've upgraded to WLAN for travel with a WLAN
SD card; you need at least an SD (SDIO) or CF slot. It works well for
email, really light and compact and long battery life, screen a bit
small for surfing the net though. But of course there are other better
groups for technical stuff.


I will take a look at your thread.

Still really annoyed with Holiday Inn, L80 a night should have wifi
included.


Yeah, it ****es me off too when businesses like hotels and
restaurants expect *customers* to pay really high prices for WLAN.
The infrastructure costs are minimal for them. I was assuming
that you know sites like hotspot-locations.com where you can
search for well-known free hotspots?

David


Just using Jiwire.com for now, will try the hotspot-locations.com

I have a Palm M515 I bought, and put in a new 1000 mah battery and 1 GB
SD card into, mostly just for this trip so my wife could leave her M515
at home. I wonder if getting a WiFi for it is practical?

  #7  
Old July 12th, 2006, 12:55 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 486
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

Kinetic wrote:

The cheapest wifi provider I know is FON (http://en.fon.com/)

FON charges •3 / day for unlimited download - probably the cheapest
rate in the whole of the UK

Unfourtunately they are very new on the market and coverage is still
patchy


I wonder if FON doesn't violate users' agreements with their broadband
providers, at least in the UK.

--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org
  #8  
Old July 12th, 2006, 05:41 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
Kinetic
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?


I wonder if FON doesn't violate users' agreements with their broadband
providers, at least in the UK.



It depends on the provider.

For example:

*FON fully permitted:
the phone cooperative

*FON only permitted in linus mode (not bill):
bulldog, bethere

*FON prohibited:
virgin.net


In any case, even if the user has intalled FON in violation of his/her
provider's agreement, as a paying client you're not liable for that
violation, the owner of the hotspot is. So no need to worry.

  #9  
Old July 12th, 2006, 10:19 PM posted to rec.travel.europe
Danglerb
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Posts: 32
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

Adding a wifi sdio card to the M515 is nuts, cards start at $50, and
other PDAs with builtin wifi aren't much more on ebay. Since I also
would like a phone with me the HP ipaq 6315 is kind of tempting, pop in
a sim for UK, and pop in a different one for USA when I get home. I'm
still learning sim, but looks like it works.

FON? I just read about an offer from them, $5 + I think $8 S&H for a
wifi router, but you have to agree to leave the connection open for a
year to people who register at fon. I thought the access was free,
maybe its free if you put out a wifi spot of your own?

Remember that to become a FONERO and connect for free to any access
point within the FON Community worldwide, you will need a FON Social
Router. What is a FON Social Router? It is a WiFi router with FON's
software inside. It allows you to have WiFi access from home but also
let's you communicate with other members of the largest WiFi community
in the world. You share your WiFi connection in a safe and secure
manner, and you show all the other FONEROS where you are located on the
FON Maps. In exchange, you may connect to any FON access point around
the world without paying a dime.

  #10  
Old July 13th, 2006, 08:40 AM posted to rec.travel.europe
David Johnstone
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 27
Default London, Wifi, or CyberCafe?

Danglerb wrote:
Adding a wifi sdio card to the M515 is nuts, cards start at $50, and
other PDAs with builtin wifi aren't much more on ebay.


Really? I hadn't realised that built-in WLAN PDA's were so cheap. In
that case you are right. If you're talking about used devices though of
course you have to remember (as with laptops) that the rechargable
battery of suchlike is the weak point.

Remember that to become a FONERO and connect for free to any access
point within the FON Community worldwide, you will need a FON Social
Router. What is a FON Social Router? It is a WiFi router with FON's
software inside. It allows you to have WiFi access from home but also
let's you communicate with other members of the largest WiFi community
in the world. You share your WiFi connection in a safe and secure
manner, and you show all the other FONEROS where you are located on the
FON Maps. In exchange, you may connect to any FON access point around
the world without paying a dime.


It's certainly an interesting idea. If you live on the 10th floor
you're also not likely to have many users though! What would
worry me a little is the legal aspect. I don't mean violation of
ISP conditions, but what happens if your users do something
illegal in internet, such as posting
defamatory comments in forums or up/downloading copyrighted
material. In many countries it's a simple matter (legally) to trace the
offence back to the IP address and hence the "fonero". Then you
would have to explain that you just opened your network to all these
nice people...

David

 




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