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Monday, September 25, 2006

Let My Wi-Fi Go

Not only is there no Mexican food in Britain, there is no free Wi-Fi in Britain.

HOW TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE IN THE BRITAIN #2: Open a coffee shop that offers free Wi-Fi.

In London, the Internet Cafes have been easy to find and easy to use. With the rate - as if by some unspoken agreement - always being £1 ($1.90 as of today) / 1 hour (1 hour as of today) of computer use. Still, I haven't yet seen a place that offers Internet service for free. Most of the cafes feature terminals, like the one I'm using now - a monitor, a mouse & keyboard, attached to a cpu somewhere down near my knees. It makes sense that the proprietor would charge for use of terminals like this - electricity costs money, and there's the cost of equipment and its upkeep. But if you're willing to waste valuable counter space with these terminals, why not also feature some wifeless Internet access as well? Free Wi-Fi? Just slap a transmitter on your broadband connection and you're off to the races.

If the only the proprietors here used what I call the "Psychobabble Method" (so called because it's a "Method" used by "Psychobabble" back in Los Feliz), they would clean up. And by "clean up", I do not mean "clean up", but actually mean "make lots of money easily in a short time". So I will rephrase: If the folks here used what I call the "Psychobabble Method" (so called because it is a "Method" used by "Psychobabble" back in Los Feliz), they would make lots of money easily in a short time. This place here is virtually deserted right now, and it's coming up on noon. But if patrons got an hour of Wi-Fi access for every, pound or two or three they spent on coffee, sandwiches, etc., the place would be jam-packed with laptop-lugging locals (and tourists). Jam-packed, I say! If it's a choice between me sitting at a table with my own laptop vs. sitting at an anonymous terminal paying, I'll take the option of using my own laptop every single time - serve me outrageously overpriced coffee, if you want you. I care not.

With a snap of the boss's fingers, this place could be the only free Wi-Fi joint in Ealing.

I'm thinking it might be the only free Wi-Fi joint in the entire country.

Now if they had free Wi-Fi AND good Mexican food? ...

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3 Comments:

Hi.I am Tony. From China.
Next year,I will
Here is my msn:

Chinajunior@msn.com

Shall we make friends?

- By Anonymous Anonymous, at Mon Sep 25, 12:35:00 PM GMT+1  

Oh,I mean next year I will be at Britain.

- By Anonymous Anonymous, at Mon Sep 25, 12:36:00 PM GMT+1  

Keep reading the the r+c blog, Tony From China. And, if fate decrees it so, we are bound to meet up!

- By Blogger Neal Romanek, at Wed Sep 27, 06:02:00 PM GMT+1  

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