OK, so I’m in the minority…. A BBC news item, Wi-fi slow to enthuse consumers, says only a handful of people use a laptop to go online when they are away from home:
"Just 11% used laptops in hotels, 7% on trains and 3% in coffee shops…. 15% thought there were not enough wireless locations for them to use the technology…. Just under 20% of laptop owners said they did not know how to use its wireless functions and one in four said they did not want to pay to use a wi-fi hotspot."
I sympathise with the last point but there are, thankfully, some enlightened organisations which are providing free wi-fi in some locations (Islington Council, for example). Living in and working near London, I am probably better served than many people (one of my friends keeps a mental list of coffee shops across London which either have free wi-fi or are close to buildings where wi-fi networks can be used to access the net; and one of my neighbours has a wireless network which I can access from my living room – though not my home office), but I still resent paying £5 to use a T-mobile hotspot on my travels; if it can’t be free, at least make it affordable, like my recent encounter with DoBo Wi-fi.
