« tech pages

A Wi-Fi'd Welshman In New York
Keeping connected in the Big Apple.
Article by Mike Slocombe for Digital Lifestyles, 29 Nov 05

For techie-obsessives like me, keeping connected when I'm away from home is right up there with finding a roof over my head and sorting out some good bars, so when I went off to New York, I made sure I packed my Sony laptop and Wi-Fi enabled smartphone.

Unlike the UK, where the provision of Wi-Fi is often only seen as a revenue earner for landlords, café owners and telecoms companies, I had no problem hooking up for free all over New York.

Maybe it's the fact that the apartments are so small in New York - or that the coffee keeps on getting refilled for free and there's free power sockets everywhere - but I've always been pleasantly surprised by the popularity of cafes and bars serving up free Wi-Fi to their customers.

Freebies galore

And it's not just cafes sharing their connections - wherever I went, a quick boot up of my laptop (or i-Mate JAMM smartphone/SanDisk wi-fi card) would inevitably produce a mile long list of networks freely available.

I successfully logged in for free all over New York - in the East Village, Williamsburg, Lower East Side, Central Park, SoHo, you name it! - and was able to fire off emails and download tunes for nowt while enjoying coffee and bagels in several fine hostelries.

One rather unfortunate side-effect of all this free connectivity is that some lively cafes have turned into library-like affairs, with rows of transfixed surfers staring intently into their screens, with the silence only broken by intermittent bursts of keyboard activity.

The only prospect of striking up a conversation seemed to be when you're ordering your cream cheese on everything bagel or if someone asked for help logging on.

Clearly, Apple's promotional machine is doing its stuff in NYC - wherever I went I'd see a cluster of glowing Apple logos emanating from every dark corner, with only a few lonely Dells, Sony's and IBM's for company - in the café demographic, there's no denying that Apple rule!

In my Williamsburg squat apartment, I managed to find several open networks, and usually had no problem getting connected - even if it did mean adopting some strange positions to hook on to a signal!

One thing to remember when logging in to free Wi-Fi networks is to always have a good firewall and up-to-date virus protection installed - and do it discretely because in the US (like the UK), connecting to open networks can can get you into trouble.

The triumph of the Treo

On the street, one handset seemed to be stuck in almost every New Yorker's hand: the Palm Treo 750. They love the phone!

I found myself looking enviously at Noo Yoikers barking into the Treo's speakerphone or knocking out emails on its natty keyboard - if only Palm had delivered on their promise of a Wi-Fi card (or if we enjoyed the same kind of cheapo cellular data rates as the US) I'd have gladly joined the Treo Club.

Still, my i-Mate JAMM worked well enough, although the limitations of its 'soft' keyboard soon started to cut short planned long email messages home, although I managed to keep my New York blog updated using the freeware Blogs In Hand software.

I had no problem finding a mobile signal (via T-Mobile) throughout the city, although I'm fearing the arrival of our next phone bill!

SMS grows

Finally SMS is starting to make an impact in the US, long-standing network interoperability problems has resulted in texting being nowhere near as popular as in the UK - my messages to New York chums were often the first texts they'd ever received!

After gorging myself on free Wi-Fi for two weeks (and bagels too, come to think about it), it has to be said New York kicks London's ass when it comes to Wi-Fi connectivity, but it's not all good news: have you seen the price of the beer out there?

And have you seen the toy-size 'pint' glasses the beer comes in? Outrageous!!

« Back to tech homepage
« New York photo guide
« New York panoramas