Public WiFi: Right for Restaurants?
Because TWH works in technical sales, we get Cisco's IQ magazine delivered to The Bungalow. This month's issue arrived today, and because TWH is away in Atlanta doing technical selling, or whatever the verb is, I'm reading it while slurping a bowl of Thai noodles for dinner.
There are some cool restaurant-related stories in this issue. This was the first one to jump out at me: Did you know there are 35,544 restaurants and cafes that offer public (free) WiFi access? Overall, more than 100,000 public hotspots circle the globe—marking an 87-percent increase in two years.
The five cities with the most hotspots are...
Seoul, Tokyo. London, San Francisco (yay!), and New York, in that order.
That's a lot of free surfing. And I'm all about it. But here's an interesting question: Is WiFi appropriate for a restaurant, cafe, or coffee shop?
I'm torn. I go to one nearby coffeeshop to work. It has wireless, and as a freelancer working around a young child's schedule, I'm so happy to have a retreat where I can work, drink, snack, and be among other adults.
Meantime, the owners of my other favorite coffee shop are adamantly against providing Internet access. They want patrons to relax, talk, interact, network—all the social functions that coffee shops have played for centuries, in many countries.
What do you think? Is wireless access allowing us to hide behind our laptops—avoiding interaction and allowing work into what should be a relaxing space? Or do you want all Net, everywhere? Use the Comments function to let me know.
Maybe someone can push me over one side of the fence.