Bad news: train breakdown. Good news: train breakdown in range of a free wifi network!
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Sunday Amtrak Blogging
23 Sep 2007 02:16 pm
Comments (9)
Are you iPhone surfing, or did you break out the laptop? I think that's an interesting question because it would tell me how useful the iPhone browser is.
If I have no laptop, I'll surf on my treo, but given the choice and the threat of being stuck for 15 minutes or more, I would bust out the laptop.
Of course, I probably would have been using the treo as a modem for the entire train ride. It's the best way to surf with a treo, you get the screen size of your laptop, the capabilities of a real browser, and a relatively fast connection. (I don't know if this is true with the iPhone, but the Treo doesn't have enough CPU to render the browser screen and pull data down at the max rate the towers will give it. But if you use it as a modem, it rocks throughputting data to the laptop.)
Get a mobile broadband card - best investment you'll ever make.
-Posted from a Verizon Mobile Broadband Card from a moving Amtrak train
WAS it a "free" WiFi spot?
Or did you just illegally piggyback on somebody's unsecured WiFi box?
They'll be over with the handcuffs later, Matt.
"WAS it a "free" WiFi spot?
Or did you just illegally piggyback on somebody's unsecured WiFi box?"
I'm thinking of organizing a wifi hotspot in my apartment complex. why don't more people do this???
Yes, get a mobile broadband card, or better yet get a cellphone that can be used as a wireless modem. My Treo on Sprint has unlimited internet for $15 a month and connects to the internet at near broadband speeds. Works great on Amtrak. It would work on Verizon as well. I think there are many other cellphones that do the same thing. You want a cell carrier with good internet speeds (not AT&T).
Funny, I also was on an Amtrak train tonight (in the Midwest, not east coast) that arrived at our destination over 1 hour late. Congrats guys, I was about to give favorable reviews to my friends after I was pleased by the electric outlets and the reasonable leg room, but no, you had to screw it up!
Actually, there are organizations that promote people setting up free WiFi spots in their neighborhoods.
There are also several companies that promote free WiFi in companies - for example, restaurants - supported by ads for local merchants. You connect to the local merchants WiFi, you get an ad at the top of your browser page from another local merchant. The merchant whose WiFi router you're using gets part of the ad revenue, which allows him to provide free WiFi to you. This is being done in a number of cities at this point.
Many people don't do free wifi in their apartment complex because of the following issues:
-who will layout the cash?
-who will collect cash if everyone in the complex is chipping in?
-what about those free riders who won't chip in?
-who will support it if there are problems? including grandmothers without the first clue about AOL?
-your apartment company is in the business of renting apartments and is pretty apathetic - sure it's and advertising bullet point but see all of the above, plus liability, plus $$$. they are more than happy to just let ATT/VZ/Comcast/TWC/Charter handle it.
Comments closed October 07, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Reminds me of the time we were at the station waiting for my daughter to get in on the infamous Coast Starlite and the train hit a rock in Chemult and broke an axle. Station staff didn't have a clue about what was going on, but as long as her cell phone held out we were able to fill them in.
In partial defence of Amtrak, I will say they got the train running again a lot faster than I expected.
Posted by Gene O'Grady | September 23, 2007 3:19 PM