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Page Two: Wi-Fi hot spots are springing up around London. ZDNet UK's intrepid reporters set out to find out if the services live up to the frothy hype.
"Sometimes it's up and sometimes it's down. We're only the host company, we can't help at all," was the helpful reply from staff at the first Starbucks we visited. Not exactly what we'd expected from the US coffee chain that is supposedly leading the pack when it comes to wireless access with around 50 sites, in 21 towns and cities. To be fair, at least the staff knew the hot spot existed -- even if they didn't know anything else about it.
As we had already set up a BT Openzone account, logging on was pretty painless. Once again though, the staff weren't much help, looking equally alarmed and vacant when asked about wireless. We were the only patrons using a laptop even though the cafe borders the creative, media-savvy environs of Farringdon and Clerkenwell. The speed test revealed a 492Kbps connection -- a quarter of the capacity available at the previous Openzone site at the Thistle. Taking the test a step further, we decided to check the boundary of the network by leaving Costa and walking across the road laptop in hand. Keeping an eye out for would-be muggers and speeding couriers, we made it all the way to the McDonalds on the other side of the street -- some 60 metres away -- without losing access. The connection cut out when we went into the eatery but the experiment shows that if there's a handy park very near a hot spot there's no reason to pay for coffee every time you want to connect. How long you'll hang on to your laptop if you start using outside it in some of London's earthier outdoor spaces is another question.
This pleasant sandwich bar, slap bang in the livelier side of Soho, is helping to pioneer a new approach to Wi-Fi. Rather than charging surfers an eye-watering fee, Benugo is offering "virtually free Wi-Fi" -- treating it as an added extra. Any customer who spends just £2 on food or drink gets 30 minutes of wireless access. This rises to £4 during the lunchtime rush, but even this is no more than a couple of coffees and a cake. Does this mean that users get a poorer service? Not in our experience. The staff are as adept at explaining the ropes (you're handed a little bit of paper printed with an access code with your purchase) as they were at rustling up sandwiches. Once connected, we found that a connection speed of around 480Kbps, and with no other users around it appears we had sole access to a 512Kbps line. Perhaps we were lucky -- according to one staff member: "We get a lot of people coming in and using the wireless network."
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