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I talked to a reporter today about wireless cafes, paid and free, and of course, the angle of the story was the big question: who is actually out there using them? I think that’s a hard thing to actually pin down. As far as I can tell, the answer is everyone who can do it will. I’ve seen users both young and old, business and casual. The people who ask the question of who, are generally people that aren’t.

A lot of people that I talk to use the coffee shop as a way to escape their office, to get away from the desk without having to actually get away.

People pitch clients, hold meetings, compose their mail and chat, surf their favorite sites. There isn’t any particular kind of person that uses wireless, just as there isn’t a particular type of person that enjoys a coffee made by a barista. If I were to walk around Seattle and ask people why they bought their coffee at a cafe rather than making it themselves, I would probably get a lot of funny looks. I would definitely be hard pressed to lump coffee-goers into any demographic group.

To Pay or Not to Pay?

One thing that I have noticed, is that what sort of access you’re going to get depends on the neighborhood you’re in, and the mindset of the local business community.

A recent trip to the University District showed that although most coffee shops have WiFi, nearly all of it is pay-as-you-go or membership based. If I were to guess at why that is, I’d say it has something to do with how the business owners percieve their customers. In a college area, most businesses follow the fast food model. Get the customer in, sell them something, get them out. Loitering students don’t buy, so why entice them with a free service that encourages taking up a table.

On Capitol Hill, the scene is much different. Most of the businesses are run by locals and encourage regulars. If you spend much time at any of the neighborhood coffee shops, you will see the same people over and over. They live in the neighborhood and support it. Free WiFi is an amenity that brings customers in. It’s cheaper to provide it for nothing than set up a billing system, and even if the cost of entry was near-zero, the public goodwill of free is enormous.

OK, I live in a fastfood world. What’s involved in paying for this stuff?

Each pay as you go service is like a little monopoly. If you want wireless at XYZ cafe, you’re going to have to go through whichever provider is there. It might be a small provider that only exists at that coffee shop, or it could be one of the big guys. Unlike a wireless phone, you’re not going to get nationwide or even citywide service. It’s going to vary every single place you go.

If you’re on the road a lot, you might be interested in some of the bigger providers, but even there, you will see a difference of price, service and locations served. You must choose wisely, and if you want wireless everywhere, you’re going to have to pay for it.

Starbucks / T-Mobile

Starbucks is probably the most well known, and talked about. The service is provided by T-Mobile, and is offered in nearly every corporate owned store.

Hotspot access is $40 a month (on a month to month basis) or $30 a month (with a yearly contract). If you’re just trying out the service, it’s $6 an hour, or $9 a day. This doesn’t get you access anywhere other than Starbucks or at Borders book stores, and if you’ve signed up for a day plan, it doesn’t work outside of the original store you signed up at.

http://www.t-mobile.com/hotspot/

Boingo

Boingo costs $40 a month, but is currently running a special price of $22 a month. Boingo is an aggregator of other people’s networks (they own no infrastructure of their own), but does not have T-Mobile as a partner. An account with Boingo gets you access to a total of 22 hotspots in the Seattle area, most of which are provided by Wayport, and at hotels. If you’re a Boingo customer that lives in Seattle, you either travel and use it elsewhere, or hang out at the airport a lot, and want a cheaper price than going through Wayport itself would give you.

http://boingo.com/

Wayport

Wayport, one of the oldest and most business focused wireless providers is also one of the most expensive. $50 a month gets you on without a contract, and it’s $30 a month if you sign up for a year. This gets you access at Airports and Hotels, so if you’re traveling a lot on the corporate dime, this is probably the network you want to be on. Of course, financially, it might make a lot more sense to go with Boingo since they’re partnered and you’ll get access to Wayport’s entire network for under half the price.

http://wayport.com/

McDonalds / Cometa

A relatively new entry into the pay as you go providers is Cometa Networks, a joint venture between IBM, Intel and AT&T. Cometa has promised a 20,000 hotspot rollout, but so far, they’ve fallen short on delivery. Some McDonalds Restaurants offer the service, but many do not. Pricing varies from store to store, and http://www.mcdwireless.com/ lists locations, but does not offer any pricing information. I’ve seen people post that McDonalds offers $3 an hour pay-as-you-go, but so far, I haven’t seen monthly pricing on any of the local restaurants.

What do you use?

Obviously, I’m a big fan of free, but there are times when free wireless is nowhere to be found. In those times, I rely on a T-Mobile GPRS phone. unlimited data service is $20 added to my phone bill, and the connection to my Powerbook is bluetooth rather than the hassle of a USB/Serial cable. It’s essentially dial-up, but it works wherever I am in Seattle, and it costs less than all of the hotspot providers. Other carriers offer similar plans, but T-Mobile is by far the cheapest and was already my carrier.

I think that for me to make the jump to a paid WiFi service, I would have to either live across the street from one (and therefore drop my DSL costs considerably) or have it be seriously inconvenient for me to get free access. The costs associated with the current set of providers are just unreasonable in my opinion, and I would hazard that I pay more for my communications than the average consumer. McDonalds / Cometa is shooting for the best price point out there, but If I start associating McDonalds and the Internet in my head, I have a feeling that I would be on the Internet a lot less than I am now. Luckily, Free isn’t hard to find, and I don’t see it going away any time soon. I wonder if that can be said about paid WiFi.