London Banter - View Single Post - "Virgin Media wins London Underground wi-fi contract"

[email protected] · March 16th 12, 10:30 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (Steve Terry)
wrote:

Theo Markettos wrote:
In uk.transport.london Steve Terry wrote:
Sorry i don't mean on the underground, i was thinking of all the
coffee shops and pubs a couple of years ago i was able to use
completely free until the big networks frightened them with stories
of abuse and sold them their secure systems.

Yup, and it's fragmented such that you need three subscriptions not
one. And PAYG is silly because it's often 5 pounds an hour, while
with 3G I can get 5 pounds a month or 50p/day. And no faffing about
with signups, registering, etc, it just works.

Wifi is just a waste of time when travelling IME, 3G is far more
useful. But sadly, due to hardware manufacturers having a US view of
the world (wifi networks that actually work, poor 3G coverage and
broken mobile tariffs), it isn't common fit on laptops and many tablets.

3G is no use on the tube, of course. But I'm not convinced that people
are going to pay a wifi-scale fee (5 pounds an hour, 10-15 pounds a
month) for the 5 minutes a day they spend lurking on a station platform.

I've got my Three Skype S2 HSDPA phone for use on the laptop
when out and about, but as a Sky BB user i'm looking forward to
free "The Cloud WiFi" as my local Wetherspoon pub and McD's
are The Cloud Wifi enabled.

Doesn't Wetherspoon's offer free wifi anyway? I'm sure they used to.

--
Colin Rosenstiel