arkitrave :: log

I’m sitting at Starbucks, without an internet connection. I don’t often sit at Starbucks, but I wanted a Chantico. However, as I’ve discovered the one or two places around town that offer free wireless internet, I have less and less reason to come to Starbucks, and my cafe loyalty has begun to be based solely on whether I can get online while I’m eating my sandwich and sipping my cappuccino.

I’m asking two questions. First, why does Starbucks continue to operate this scam deal with T-Mobile whereby I would pay more than my home DSL connection just to get online during the small portion of the day I am at Starbucks? Wireless internet DOESN’T COST THAT MUCH.

Secondly, why don’t more cafes get on the bandwagon and begin to offer wifi? My choices are very limited, and I’m getting sick of the sandwiches at my current hangout. I know there are some equipment costs in the beginning, but maintaining an on-site wireless access point involves one broadband connection, which in Buffalo costs between $30 and $60, depending on the type of connection and the provider. For a halfway successful coffee shop, this isn’t a lot to pony up, considering the extra coffee and food I would buy. And I’m just one customer.

The problem is that there are larger companies that are trying to be the T-Mobile to smaller cafes’ Starbucks. They, too, charge something outrageous like $6 an hour or $25 to $35 a month, and the only benefit to the cafe is that they handle the connection and billing. While lining their pockets. If I bought into all this, I could be paying $100 a month to get internet access at a couple local cafes and Starbucks. It reminds me of paying for internet access by the minute back in 1994.

The demand for this kind of environment is growing. I can’t work at home very easily, and I don’t have an office. So I’m a walking portable office, willing to bring my laptop and money to anyplace that is accommodating and has good food.

What we need is some knowledge in the business community that setting up such a service isn’t that hard, and there is no need to charge a customer $30 a month for something that is going to be on the level of restroom access in a few years. They may have pay toilets in Paris, but we don’t do that here, and internet access needs to become an amenity that is absorbed by the business and passed along to me in a few cent a drink cost increase, not a high-priced luxury good that causes me to bring my business elsewhere.