dammIT

A rantbox by Michiel Scholten

Free Public WiFi


Remember Free Public WiFi?

Once, many years ago, I stayed on the 62nd floor of the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia. This was in the age when the price of a hotel room was directly correlated with the price of the WiFi service, and as a high school student I was not prepared to pay in excess of $15 a day for the internet. As I remember, a Motel 6 that was not blocks away but within line of sight ended up filling the role. But even up there, 62 floors from the ground, there was false promise: Free Public WiFi.

Remember those networks? They used to be everywhere. Fun little trip down memory lane about the how, why, and where they went. (Spoiler: they weren't real networks).