I’m sitting in a hotel room on the Parade in Napier typing this. I’ve just read Simon Hendery’s none to surprising editorial about WiFi availability in this country.
My experiences of the last two days;
- Koru club lounge at Christchurch Airport – WiFi not working
- Koru club lounge at Wellington Airport – had to visit concierge and get dinky little piece of paper with the WiFi to use it (and bear in mind this is in the Koru lounge – not the general airport. How many Koru club member would expect this sort of hassle
- Hotel in Napier. WiFi available at $10/day or a minimum trffic charge that is crazy considering my 36 hour visit
I resorted to using dialup which is a particularl sobering experience and one sure to;
a) annoy
b) remind one just how far we have to go in New Zealand
So Simon, no surprises in what you wrote.
Ben, yes. Hard-to-find wi-fi is the one thing that drives me nuts on my regular visits back home from NYC. And roaming charges for the Blackberry on Vodafone’s data network mean I can spend hundreds of dollars in just a few days, so I usually switch on out-of-office and pretend I’m on vacation…
The airports are interesting, the authorities want to be telco’s (talk about you’re monopolies!!!)
Mobile data will usurp wifi… i know you’ll say that its price prohibitive but it becomes chicken and egg around volume…
Maybe I’m just too tight for mobile data – I’ll let you inot a secret – I’m probably the only person I know who uses a Wifi/GPRS/Bluetooth SuperSmartphone on a prepay account!
…. wow, you are right…..