So I walk into a Starbucks…...

Would you like wi-fi with that?

By Chris Keall / Monday, May 30 2005

toting my wi-fi capable notebook. Cool. It’s a hotspot, so I can do my email wirelessly as I slurp my $4.95 flat white. But wait, what’s this? This ain’t no wireless network for all Starbucks customers. It’s for Xtra members only, secured by the need to have an Xtra user name and password. It seems an open standard can be defeated by a propriety billing system. The pricing also makes it a bit of a notspot: $9.95 an hour (“charged per second from the time you log-on”), or about 500% more expensive than the many dedicated internet cafes that festoon the streets around PC World’s Queen St Auckland HQ.
But wi-fi being wi-fi, I surf for free anyway.

I fire up my Qosmio which, like all the notebooks in Toshiba’s new range, comes with a nifty piece of wi-fi network-sensing software called ConfigFree. Its radar-screen-style interface pops up, telling me I have four wireless networks to choose from. One is Starbucks’ official Telecom hotspot, which ConfigFree lists as secured, and is duly blocked unless I cough up an authorised log-on.

Two are nameless, and unsecured — presumably beaming out from local businesses which, like many, have left their wireless networks wide open (wi-fi does have robust security now, but only if you go through the finicky procedure of turning it on). The fourth accessible wi-fi network is labelled ‘Slingshot’. I connect, no log-on required, and surf happily around the web until I finish my coffee.

So I buy a couple of movie tickets online. I just know it’s not going to work, but I have to try it anyway. It takes a while to enter my credit card details, but I get to pick my seats. Then we go to the cinema to catch the 6pm session. I stand by the ‘Seat Smart’ counter, waiting for somebody to turn up. To pass the time as I wait, I can watch the people paying old-fashioned-at-the-cash-register-style get immediate service. Eventually, someone waddles over to give me my tickets. Apparently we’re lucky because, in this instance, internet and over-the-counter ticket sales haven’t been double-booked.

So I get an email from my old mucker Rob Clarke, who’s been rather spoiled during several weeks in the US, where he’s enjoyed free broadband internet access at various hotels.

Back in New Zealand, he stays at a place in Wellington that charges $1 a minute for Ethernet internet access, and more for wireless. It’s always pathetic to see any establishment treat net access as a minibar-style gouge rather than a mainstream business offering (and, needless to say, the minibar was a gouge too, with Rob paying $9 for a milkshake. Calories, Rob, calories).

So we keep bagging this government — and the last — for treating Telecom’s landline broadband monopoly with kid gloves (see Consumer Watch, page 17). But, in the end, real broadband competition may not come through regulating landlubbing DSL, but through new wireless technology. BCL — the former TVNZ broadcast infrastructure unit now turned lose in the private sector — is about to start experimenting with a WiMax network in urban areas. The Intel-backed WiMax is wi-fi on steroids, able to zing a wireless signal kilometres rather than metres. This so-called ‘Airspan’ network will be an interesting one to watch. Will it manage to beat the latency bugbears that have made Woosh a no-go for online gamers and IP telephony?

So I read our pcworld.co.nz Quick Poll (April 11-15) and discover that an unscientific sample of readers agree with Nandor Tanzcos that other government departments should follow the District Health Boards’ lead, and start trialling open source software too. Some of your comments:
From Matthew Bowra-Dean: “Not only is it free, but it’s more secure.”

Uncivil servant Vic Dawson added: “I work for the government. Never mind saving the tax dollars. Anything other than MS Word gets my vote!”

On the con side was Erin Dinneen with: “It’s the wanky $200-an-hour consultants that bunk the costs up.”

Phil Brimacombe, who is the CIO of the Waitemata and Counties boards, which share a services organisation, told our sister publication Computerworld he could save up to $20 million in Microsoft software licence fees over 10 years.

Let’s hope such deals do put pressure on the prices that Microsoft charges the rest of us. I wish Phil well. But let’s also forget about free open source. Novell, (its Suse line will go into the Health Boards) plus its part-owner IBM, care just as much about making a buck as Bill Gates.

So I go to get some cash out of an ASB money machine. It’s crashed. A message on its screen says ‘OS/2 Warp’. Warp lives! Who’d a thunk it?