Saturday, July 01, 2006

Wifi Hotspots Redux

The Republican-American ran an article today about coffee shops with wifi access for customers. The article's writer, Tracy O'Shaughnessy, focused mainly on a place in Cheshire and a discussion of telecommuting in general. Tracy noted that Starbucks makes you pay for wifi, whereas the local coffee shops usually give you free access. She also listed a "sampling" of area wifi hotspots. The only one she listed in all of Waterbury was Brass City Buzz. She also listed one in Watertown, one in Southbury, one in Woodbury and one in North Haven. North Haven? I'm not even sure I know where that is. Somewhere north of New Haven, I suspect. She really should have listed more. John Bale on Grand Street in Waterbury. I've heard that the new (and very delicious) Pizza Cafe on West Main Street in Waterbury has public wifi. The Bronson library has wifi, but I don't know if they let the public use it. Most McDonald's have wifi, but like Starbucks, they make you pay to use it.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of the article was. Maybe it was just to let people who don't use wifi know that there are people who do. For people who want to know where they can go to get free wifi access, it was close to useless. A better article would have been one that has a comprehensive list of wifi hotspots, indicating which are free for customers, and reviewing the different coffee shops. That would have been a great article--or at least one I'd like to read!

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