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How many people is this available to? As a tourist, my experience with London's local wifi was trash when I visited a month ago. Coffee shops and my hotel were

How many people is this available to? As a tourist, my experience with London's local wifi was trash when I visited a month ago. Coffee shops and my hotel were dog slow. You'd think that someone would see the value of fast wifi to all of the people working remote, especially in a major city. I was only there for a few days, but I would have visited the same place multiple times had I found one with a fast connection.

Symbiote 4y ago
It could also be a decision to have poor WiFi in a cafe. The cafe might prefer several customers, to one who sits for two hours with one drink. (Your first question is answered in the first line of the article.)
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  Also I don't think many people are still that bothered by WiFi, when a £30 data plan probably gets you as much as you need (I never hit the cap on an £8 plan, but I don't work away from home/office, so I rarely use much data). If it's for work, it's a minor cost for a good connection. Snooping around for free WiFi feels like a fairly noughties kind of an activity. Finding sockets: now that's the real trick if you don't have a laptop with a big and/or hotswappable battery or very good power management.
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
> How many people is this available to? I have Community fibre 1GB. I got it soon after it became available in my area. So it's not available to everyone. You can find a map and postcode checker here: https://fairinternetreport.com/Community-Fibre https://fairinternetreport.com/Community-Fibre > my experience with London's local wifi was trash Community fibre, in my case, is residential wired internet. The wire is an optic fibre, it's in the name. Yes they supply a router for a Wifi AP and some ethernet ports but fundamentally, they supply the wires, the WiFi is not their domain. IDK if they supply internet to small businesses such as "Coffee shops and hotels" but quite often the nature of the business means that configuring it well isn't a high priority.
selectodude 4y ago
Local Wi-Fi has gone to shit everywhere because everybody has significantly faster and more reliable data on their phones. I haven’t used a public hotspot in half a decade.
- CircleSpokes 4y ago
  Same. I'm to the point now I don't even use wifi at home or my family/friends house. I only pay for 100mbit/s at home (my local ISP charges too much for anything faster) which is the same or less than what I typically get on my phone so I see little reason to bother with wifi at all.
- drumhead 4y ago
  Same for me. I never use wi-fi for my mobile. I've got enough data on my tarrif, the speeds are pretty good and I really dont trust the wifi much.
- james_in_the_uk 4y ago
  Mobile data can get quite congested in London. 5G helps a bit but it's still not a perfect experience. Outside of London, local Wifi can still be very useful as there are still plenty of not-spots.
  - DrJokepu 4y ago
    Is there 5G yet in the stations and tunnels of the London Underground?
    - traceroute66 4y ago
      > Is there 5G yet in the stations and tunnels of the London Underground? By the end of 2024, I believe. London Underground were slow adopters, especially in tunnels, because for a long time they (rightly or wrongly) claimed "security" as a reason not to do it.
      - 42365767567 4y ago
LatteLazy 4y ago
Why charge 100 quid for a fast connection when you can charge 100 quid for a slow one?
solar-ice 4y ago
Coffee shops and hotels do not generally invest in better internet than is necessary to run their card readers and meet brand guidelines. If you want fast wifi for work, you can pay for it in London quite easily - it's called hotdesking.
traceroute66 4y ago
> How many people is this available to? Community Fibre are one of those cherry-picking networks (same as Hyperoptic and others of their ilk). They only go for the low-hanging fruit, i.e. large residential blocks in BT monopoly areas where BT have not yet rolled out fibre. Sometimes they'll stray from that, but mostly that's how those companies operate.
- peteri 4y ago
  HyperOptic are annoying in that respect, but Community Fibre are at least arriving in my area and I have had some marketing from them. I currently have an OpenReach 900/100 connection so I'm not in much of a hurry but CF do seem to be a lot better than HyperOptic

Symbiote 4y ago

It could also be a decision to have poor WiFi in a cafe. The cafe might prefer several customers, to one who sits for two hours with one drink. (Your first question is answered in the first line of the article.)

adhesive_wombat 4y ago
Also I don't think many people are still that bothered by WiFi, when a £30 data plan probably gets you as much as you need (I never hit the cap on an £8 plan, but I don't work away from home/office, so I rarely use much data). If it's for work, it's a minor cost for a good connection. Snooping around for free WiFi feels like a fairly noughties kind of an activity. Finding sockets: now that's the real trick if you don't have a laptop with a big and/or hotswappable battery or very good power management.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago

> How many people is this available to? I have Community fibre 1GB. I got it soon after it became available in my area. So it's not available to everyone. You can find a map and postcode checker here: https://fairinternetreport.com/Community-Fibre https://fairinternetreport.com/Community-Fibre > my experience with London's local wifi was trash Community fibre, in my case, is residential wired internet. The wire is an optic fibre, it's in the name. Yes they supply a router for a Wifi AP and some ethernet ports but fundamentally, they supply the wires, the WiFi is not their domain. IDK if they supply internet to small businesses such as "Coffee shops and hotels" but quite often the nature of the business means that configuring it well isn't a high priority.

selectodude 4y ago

Local Wi-Fi has gone to shit everywhere because everybody has significantly faster and more reliable data on their phones. I haven’t used a public hotspot in half a decade.

CircleSpokes 4y ago
Same. I'm to the point now I don't even use wifi at home or my family/friends house. I only pay for 100mbit/s at home (my local ISP charges too much for anything faster) which is the same or less than what I typically get on my phone so I see little reason to bother with wifi at all.
drumhead 4y ago
Same for me. I never use wi-fi for my mobile. I've got enough data on my tarrif, the speeds are pretty good and I really dont trust the wifi much.
james_in_the_uk 4y ago
Mobile data can get quite congested in London. 5G helps a bit but it's still not a perfect experience. Outside of London, local Wifi can still be very useful as there are still plenty of not-spots.
- DrJokepu 4y ago
  Is there 5G yet in the stations and tunnels of the London Underground?
  - traceroute66 4y ago
    > Is there 5G yet in the stations and tunnels of the London Underground? By the end of 2024, I believe. London Underground were slow adopters, especially in tunnels, because for a long time they (rightly or wrongly) claimed "security" as a reason not to do it.
    - 42365767567 4y ago

LatteLazy 4y ago

Why charge 100 quid for a fast connection when you can charge 100 quid for a slow one?

solar-ice 4y ago

Coffee shops and hotels do not generally invest in better internet than is necessary to run their card readers and meet brand guidelines. If you want fast wifi for work, you can pay for it in London quite easily - it's called hotdesking.

traceroute66 4y ago

> How many people is this available to? Community Fibre are one of those cherry-picking networks (same as Hyperoptic and others of their ilk). They only go for the low-hanging fruit, i.e. large residential blocks in BT monopoly areas where BT have not yet rolled out fibre. Sometimes they'll stray from that, but mostly that's how those companies operate.

peteri 4y ago
HyperOptic are annoying in that respect, but Community Fibre are at least arriving in my area and I have had some marketing from them. I currently have an OpenReach 900/100 connection so I'm not in much of a hurry but CF do seem to be a lot better than HyperOptic