I have escaped the Digital Stone Age

I have just returned from almost week stuck in the Digital stone age, also known as "visiting family".

A typical day for me usually involves me never being away from a fast internet connection for more than a couple of hours at a time:

• Home - 1Mb connection
  
• Office - 512k connection
  
• London - Up to 1Mb connection in wifi hotspots, e.g. Starbucks
  

Usually when I go "Up North", the slow dial-up connection via my mobile GPRS is quite sufficient for picking up email and I just grumble quietly about not being able to do too much as the cost of 1Mb data over GPRS is something akin to a cheap laptop on eBay

However, this trip, was poorly timed and I had some serious work to do, unfortunately on various web based services which meant I was going to use a serious amount of data. Luckily, my T-mobile provider has just started offering an all you can eat GPRS access for just £7.50 per month, bargain I thought.

If only it had been that simple, not having to worry about the cost, I set about doing my stuff only to discover that the so called GPRS connection has a theoretical max speed of about 115kps, but an actual speed of data glacial if you try to do anything serious. So what would normally have taken 30 mins took about 3 hours of excruciatingly slow page refreshes.

The next day, I tried a different approach and tried to find a WiFi connection. First I tried a Cafe Nero, supposedly part of the Surf and Sip network, except, the staff there couldn'tt spell internett never mind work out why their wifi connection was appearing for only about 1 second every five minutes.

Second I tried a local bar, supposedly part of the same network, the conversation went something like this:

"What can I get ya?" asked bored looking female bar staff.
"Is your wifi connection working in here?" I asked politeley
"Our what?"
"Your internet connection, you're supposed to have a wifi hotspot here?"
"Our hifi connection? What's that? The jukebox uses CDs, we havent had hifi here for years"
"Never mind"

Finally, I drove out to another pub and sat in the car park trying to pick up the hotspot signal - success, it was there but a poor connection. So I went inside and ordered a beer, asking the bar man where was the best spot for his wifi connection.

"What's that?" he said looking puzzled.
"Your wifi hotspot, the connection was a bit weak in the car park, where is your router?"
"We don't have an internet connection here", he said looking a bit baffled, "maybe you are picking up a local house?"
"OK, I'll just sit over here quietly", I said, not having the energy to argue.

For the next half an hour I enjoyed wifi/broadband bliss, whilst occasionaly giving knowing glances to the puzzled looking barman.

And the moral of this story, just because your wifi provider says there should be a hotspot there, don't you believe it, I'm off now to look at the price of a 3G laptop PCMCIA card....