Technology

Telstra + Starbucks WiFi

Starbucks is now offering WiFi access through Telstra. As much as I dislike Starbucks conceptually, that’s pretty useful. So, I think I’ll be getting a Telstra WiFi account now – they have hotspots in enough locations now to warrant it – unless Azure or the competitors reduce their prices and increase their coverage, they’ll be in a lot of trouble – Telstra now has two major chains providing access points (McDonalds and Starbucks) plus a bunch other hotspots around the place (like at the QVB near Town Hall in Sydney). Starbucks are currently offering 1hr free too – take advantage of it while you can I say 😉

  • i’m not sure how well these hotspots work – but my business recently signed up with Unwired.com.au which involves purchasing a modem that recieves signal from most areas in sydney. it’s only roughly $30 a month, and considering the work we do which requires being mobile – i find it to be quite worthwhile. It doesn’t work in all places – but my impression is that it has the biggest coverage of any other competitors. The only downfall is that it is an external modem, which runs on battery. But we have a car charger for it so we don’t run out.

  • Hi Sean – yeh – Unwired looks pretty interesting – there’s a couple of service providers doing similar things. It requires a PCM-CIA card as well, which is no good for my Powerbook 12″ (the 15″ and 17″ models do have a slot suitable for this) so I’m still stuck looking for standard wifi hotspots.

    The term “WiFi hotspot” refers to the 802.11 wireless networking protocol – which is reasonably short-range (say up to 100 feet), not the long-range service that Unwired et. al are offering. There have been two problems to date with WiFi – one is lack of hotspots (slowly becoming less and issue) and high connection costs (still an issue at about $10-$12 per hour with most of the major providers).

  • WiFi in Starbucks? If they learnt to make coffee that’d be a bonus. I wonder if the Starbuck managers would get shirty if I took my thermos? 😉

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