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max January 8th 11 07:09 PM

wi-fi coverage
 
How is it wi-fi coverage in london airports or tube stations?

Steve Dulieu[_3_] January 9th 11 11:00 AM

wi-fi coverage
 


"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...

On Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:09:15 GMT, "max" wrote:

How is it wi-fi coverage in london airports or tube stations?


Non existent in terms of free wi-fi access.

There is no wi-fi on the tube except at Charing Cross station where
there is a trial underway. You have to pay for access to that.

The airports do have it but you're almost certainly going to have to pay
unless travelling business class and then it is free in the lounges.

Some main line trains offer wi-fi for free while others require payment.
These tend to be longer distance trains travelling some distance from
London. I am not aware of free wi-fi being available in main line
stations.

Some coffee bars and some pubs do provide free wi-fi.

A google search for "free wi-fi hotspots London" or similar will turn up
some information.


Bit of a special case, but London City has free Wi-Fi in both the departure
lounge and the Landside Check-in area.

--
Cheers, Steve.


Robin Cox[_3_] January 9th 11 12:12 PM

wi-fi coverage
 
"Steve Dulieu" wrote in message
...

The airports do have it but you're almost certainly going to have to pay
unless travelling business class and then it is free in the lounges.


There are a number of Wetherspoons bars at LHR, both landside
and airside. Don't they offer free wi-fi?


Robin


Steve Dulieu[_3_] January 10th 11 04:30 PM

wi-fi coverage
 


"Robin Cox" wrote in message ...

"Steve Dulieu" wrote in message
...

The airports do have it but you're almost certainly going to have to pay
unless travelling business class and then it is free in the lounges.


There are a number of Wetherspoons bars at LHR, both landside
and airside. Don't they offer free wi-fi?


Surprisingly it appears not. I've just checked the Wetherspoons website and
none of the Heathrow outlets list Wi-Fi as one of the facilities available
to customers. Mind you that ain't saying much, according to the website the
Kings Ford in Chingford has Wi-Fi and sure enough any wireless equipped
device can see a "The Cloud" provided connection. Sadly it's utterly
impossible to connect to it. Reporting the matter to any sort of management
in the pub gets you a shrug and a "yeah, it's a bit **** isn't it". Given
I've been reporting the problem since October I don't think it's going to be
fixed anytime soon.

--
Cheers, Steve


Mizter T January 10th 11 08:58 PM

wi-fi coverage
 

On Jan 10, 5:30*pm, "Steve Dulieu"
wrote:

"Robin Cox" *wrote:

"Steve Dulieu" wrote in message


The airports do have it but you're almost certainly going to have
to pay unless travelling business class and then it is free in the
lounges.


There are a number of Wetherspoons bars at LHR, both landside
and airside. Don't they offer free wi-fi?


Surprisingly it appears not. I've just checked the Wetherspoons website and
none of the Heathrow outlets list Wi-Fi as one of the facilities available
to customers. Mind you that ain't saying much, according to the website the
Kings Ford in Chingford has Wi-Fi and sure enough any wireless equipped
device can see a "The Cloud" provided connection. Sadly it's utterly
impossible to connect to it. Reporting the matter to any sort of management
in the pub gets you a shrug and a "yeah, it's a bit **** isn't it". Given
I've been reporting the problem since October I don't think it's going to be
fixed anytime soon.


Contact head office?

Re Wetherspoons, wifi and Heathrow - I'd guess that the BAA tenancy
agreement prevents tenants from offering publicly accessible wifi, as
it'd encroach on the paid-for product offered by BAA (through their
sillyly named provider, Boingo) - see:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/Heathrow-wifi

(What kind of absurd web server or CMS do BAA use - the URLs are just
ridiculous, mind you Network Rail's system is just as 'URL cite
unfriendly' too.)

congokid January 13th 11 01:08 PM

wi-fi coverage
 
In article
,
Mizter T writes

Re Wetherspoons, wifi and Heathrow - I'd guess that the BAA tenancy
agreement prevents tenants from offering publicly accessible wifi


I've checked the airport branches of Pret a Manger and none has wifi,
though many of the central London outlets do. Having said that, the
Prets nearest Heathrow - in Uxbridge and Richmond - don't appear to
offer wifi either.

--
congokid
Eating out in London? Read my tips...
http://congokid.com

Tom Anderson January 14th 11 08:24 PM

wi-fi coverage
 
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011, Mizter T wrote:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/Heathrow-wifi

(What kind of absurd web server or CMS do BAA use - the URLs are just
ridiculous,


According to the headers, the server per se is Apache, but it's a
front-end to something running on a Java application server. They've got
an Arrowpoint load-balancer.

A look at the page source confirms that it's Java - there are URLs
pointing to JSPs - and indicates that they're using portlets, but don't
know how to set up tag libraries properly. The URL fragments suggest it's
a Model 2 architecture (lots of /controller/dispatcher.jsp all over the
place).

There are some elements in the URLs which are quite distinctive -
parameters called CiID and ChPath seem to crop up a lot. Googling for
those only finds BAA sites.

My verdict would be that it's largely homebrew - they got some consultants
in to build something for them, and they went bonkers and wrote it all
from scratch (with some portlets for flavour) instead of using an existing
web framework or CMS. This might be because it's a very old site; it might
just because the consultants were brain-damaged.

mind you Network Rail's system is just as 'URL cite unfriendly' too.)


I know. It's a modern plague. And, i have to say, a sign of a
badly-managed project - good URLs win you significant brownie points from
search engines, so a site with bad URLs indicates that someone senior was
asleep at the switch.

tom

--
All roads lead unto death row; who knows what's after?


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