I am thinking of getting a PDA and was wondering if in most public places such as macdonalds, airports and restaurents etc wi fi was actually a free service or if they charged you for it? I would really appreciate this. Cheers, thanks.
Charged mostly. At ridiculous rates. If you use it a lot it's better to have one of those subscriptions with an operator like T-Mobile that gives you inclusive minutes.
Yeah us in the uk gotta pay for everything, and then tax on top, you could always drive around residential areas stealing other peoples wifi connection, not that I'm advocating stealing, I'm just trying to convey the idea that the only things that are free are usually stolen, in the UK at least ......
There are a lot of free wifi spots...Starbucks for example....as competition heats up for customers, more places are making it free.
Some are free, my friend uses his neighbours wireless.. I can't remember the site exactly but .. there was something like wifind.com or something where you could enter a location and it'd give you some free spots.
a lot of places in Austin are free, http://www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/ I have 3 within a mile of my zip alone, 33 within 10!!
I have a GPRS from T-Mobile now but 95% of the time you can catch a Wifi signal which is "unsecrued" around small stores but those Wifi spots charge and as someone else said "At rediculous rates"
I have installed wifi locater from www.jiwire.com, mots of the time free wifi hotspots have either a very week signal or are not available at times I really prefer boingo, though they are a bit expensive at 21.95 per month. But the services are really good.