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In the past I have lived or died by Starbucks and Caribou - driving around Omaha or some random town in Colorado trying to find public internet access. Now that

In the past I have lived or died by Starbucks and Caribou - driving around Omaha or some random town in Colorado trying to find public internet access. Now that I have a phone with national internet access, truly mobile internet is going to completely change how I work when I travel. The rest stops with wifi have been fun finds in the past. There's one 50 miles west of Omaha for instance with decent wireless internet - I got a lot of odd looks sitting at a picnic table with my Macbook doing emails for two hours. Now, I can do that anywhere!

SwellJoe 16y ago
My Kindle was priceless in Canada. It has free 3G web browsing, even internationally...so, when I was stopping for the night, I'd do a search for "free wifi (city-name)", and punch the resulting address into the GPS. The Kindle browser is completely unusable for normal browsing (it's like browsing from 1994), but it's acceptable for that one query. I've found that rest stops with WiFi are rarely in working condition. I'm not sure why it's so hard for public hotspots to be kept operational, but apparently it is, as I'd say 75% of the ones at unattended locations are simply not working. I've learned to never expect WiFi to work, even if it is advertised on the sign or on the website or whatever. The same is true of campgrounds, 80% of which claim to have WiFi but only about 40% of which actually have usable speed and reliability. I'm tempted, being a nerd, to just go around fixing campground networks, free of charge. But, usually, I just use my 3G/4G modem. I'm getting 500kbps-1Mbps here in the desert, which is completely usable.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Wifi is indeed usually atrocious at rest stops, which is why the one in Nebraska was such a find (my standard is 'works well for 8 bit VNC'). I find they usually 'work', technically, but the signal quality is very poor. Some hotels have been similarly ruined for me by lack of acceptable internet service. As an entrepreneur, I'm never on a real vacation and thus a reliable, stable, reasonably fast connection is even more important than working plumbing. If a 3G device can take care of that, it's quite a relief. I always dreaded that I would sign in at a hotel, go to my room, and find the internet connection was lousy.

SwellJoe 16y ago

My Kindle was priceless in Canada. It has free 3G web browsing, even internationally...so, when I was stopping for the night, I'd do a search for "free wifi (city-name)", and punch the resulting address into the GPS. The Kindle browser is completely unusable for normal browsing (it's like browsing from 1994), but it's acceptable for that one query. I've found that rest stops with WiFi are rarely in working condition. I'm not sure why it's so hard for public hotspots to be kept operational, but apparently it is, as I'd say 75% of the ones at unattended locations are simply not working. I've learned to never expect WiFi to work, even if it is advertised on the sign or on the website or whatever. The same is true of campgrounds, 80% of which claim to have WiFi but only about 40% of which actually have usable speed and reliability. I'm tempted, being a nerd, to just go around fixing campground networks, free of charge. But, usually, I just use my 3G/4G modem. I'm getting 500kbps-1Mbps here in the desert, which is completely usable.

code_duck 16y ago
Wifi is indeed usually atrocious at rest stops, which is why the one in Nebraska was such a find (my standard is 'works well for 8 bit VNC'). I find they usually 'work', technically, but the signal quality is very poor. Some hotels have been similarly ruined for me by lack of acceptable internet service. As an entrepreneur, I'm never on a real vacation and thus a reliable, stable, reasonably fast connection is even more important than working plumbing. If a 3G device can take care of that, it's quite a relief. I always dreaded that I would sign in at a hotel, go to my room, and find the internet connection was lousy.