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Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog

May 17, 2009 GMT
Jon maddog Hall

I am once again headed to the airport, this time to fly to London for the cloud computing conference I blogged about previously. Normally I take a private car, but this time I decided to use the bus service that goes from a free parking lot close to my house directly to the airport. It is only twenty-six dollars round trip, a lot less than the private car.
I have taken the bus before. It is comfortable and has a bathroom on board (important when you drink a lot of coffee and are "older"), and often I start up my notebook computer and work a bit.
This time was different. They had free WiFi on board the bus. This is awesome. Now I can spend the hour and one-half it takes to get to the airport sending email, gathering information for my next talk, and working away as if I was at my house. Then I get to the airport and once through check in and security I can plug in my notebook, charging it for the flight, and use the Internet again.
After years of traveling getting worse, a few small bright spots.
maddog

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Comments

  • More on Internet While Traveling



    For those who follow my writings, you know I travel a LOT. Several years ago I signed onto a service that offers (in effect) roaming through thousands of different hot-spots throughout the world. I pay a certain amount every month, and then when I reach an airport, hotel or other paid hot spot, typically my provider has an agreement with them to allow me to use their hot spot without additional charge. Is it everywhere? No, but I have saved a lot of money throughout the years by using this service.

    There are other concepts that are coming about. FON (http://www.fon.com/en/promos/fonera2) for instance, where I did not look at them for a couple of months and during that time they have developed their new FON 2.0 router that not only routes but is a mini-server too. FON hot spots continue to grow in number and usability.

    Or WeFi (http://www.wefi.com/), as a way to find free WiFi spots.

    And of course some people are tuning in with cellular 3G service, even if their cell phones do not support 3G by using 3G dongles if they are available.

    Communication is becoming easier, faster and cheaper even if it is not "omnipresent and free" right now.

  • Glad to hear that this is changing for the better

    Interesting. Everytime I need a WiFi connection at a random airport, they usually want another $14.99 in addition to those $500 already paid for the ticket.... That's usually good for 24 hours, and there is no other choice, even that a connection is needed for maybe half-an-hour or so...

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