Making the internet as comfortable and portable as a book

NET RESULTS/Karlin Lillington: Do you WiFi? That is, do you use wireless broadband networks, either in your own home, or when travelling?

For me, WiFi has been a revelation, one that will, I think, ultimately change our views about internet connectivity so that we really do view it as an always-on utility, not an expensive subscription service.

I'm a relatively recent convert to wireless. When I was thinking about a new laptop last spring and decided, after much research, to opt for Apple's lovely little 12-inch G4 laptop, I figured I might as well go for the option of having Apple's wireless networking card installed as well.

I also bought Apple's Airport Extreme wireless base station, because I knew it was supposed to make WiFi networking a cinch. And with its little white flying saucer shape with blinking white lights on the front, it looks pretty cool, too.

The Airport would also work with my Dell Windows desktop (I used an Ethernet networking card - extremely cheap these days at about €12 - and a cable to the Airport, rather than going for the much more expensive option of a wireless card for the Dell).

I needed to get some help from Apple after all, because of my slightly more complicated set-up of PC on Ethernet rather than a wireless card, but a brief talk-through got me up and running.

Before this, I'd nearly decided not to bother and to return the Airport. Am I ever glad I didn't.

My home wireless network is one of the best tech expenses I've had in years. The minute it was in, the fun began.

Once you can take the internet wherever you go in the home (or down the garden for that matter; most base stations will keep you wired while you bask in the sun and finish off that report), the internet never seems the same. It becomes a resource, a tool, a filing system, a music system, a photo album, a dictionary, the world's largest encyclopaedia.

I can work wherever I want - the table, the sofa, on a chair in the side yard, on the kitchen counter. I can do phone interviews - which I often prefer to do with the internet on in the background so that I have relevant documents or websites to hand - anywhere that I want in the house.

If I'm reading on the couch and want to check a word, it's easier just to open the laptop and go to Dictionary.com than to go find where I put the paper dictionary. The Net is always on. The sleek laptop goes everywhere, fits on a shelf, slips into a handbag.

All of this makes the internet something that is as portable and comfortable as a book. Which means you start to use it as a ubiquitous source of ... well, everything imaginable, rather than see it as something you have to go to and access. The difference seems subtle until you experience it.

After experiencing wirelessness, the next time you take the laptop to the office or carry it along to a hotel on a work trip, and find yourself crabbily fussing with cables and wires, you wonder why the world isn't WiFi.

That's when you realise your perspective has shifted in significant ways.

You want the internet just to be there. Imagine if you had to make special arrangements and then pay extra to get the lights to turn on in your hotel room, or for the toilet to flush.

That's what a non-WiFi, high-cost access world begins to seem like - a place where services that should be utilities are charged for and awkward to set up.

All this - and the news that Aer Rianta is looking for bids for a wireless network for Dublin Airport - set me thinking about the WiFi networks that a number of operators, including Wayport, O2 and Eircom, have put into Irish hotels and few public places such as Dublin's Heuston Station.

By and large, the charges are high: €10 per hour or €20 for a 24-hour period. Such cost structures seem silly given that, once you have the broadband connection running into a place, adding on more users via a wireless connection is very cheap.

The high costs seem to keep user numbers down.

I wonder how many people are actually using these wireless "hotspots", as they are called. Or how many even know they are there - none of the hotels or public locations supposedly wired seem to have notices letting you know that you can get online, which won't exactly drive usage.

I think if the public hotspots dropped prices to €5 per hour, or €10 for a 24-hour period in a hotel, say, they'd begin to see some real take-up.

It surprises me that few cafes offer wireless access either. Bewleys would be a prime example - or maybe it doesn't really want people to loiter online (however, as people will sit for an hour with a single cup of coffee, why not make several times the value of the coffee by charging some nominal amount for hourly wireless access?).

A notable exception is the cafe in the lovely atrium of the Chester Beatty Library, which offers WiFi - free.

Eventually, I think the price will come down - and perhaps vanish entirely, especially in hotels.

Free WiFi is a much better service for enticing customers, especially higher-spending business customers, than, say, offering a choice of pillows. I'd choose a hotel on that basis, definitely.

Because it is hard to find the few places that offer WiFi access, I've posted a list on my weblog - the link is below. If you know of anyplace - hotel, hostel, café, station - that offers WiFi access , please mail me and I'll add it to the list. Let me know if it is free or not (no private work networks, of course!).

And let me know if you've tried any of the hotspots yourselves. I'm still looking for someone who has.

klillington_at_irish-times.ie

http://weblog.techno-culture.com