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Coffee shop in Seattle turns off free Wi-Fi on weekends -- More to the story?
By sooz on Fri, 05/27/2005 - 1:15pm
Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News wrote yesterday about a coffee shop in Seattle that decided to "experiment with taking back its culture by turning off the Wi-Fi juice on weekends."
In the story at Wi-Fi Networking News, coffee shop co-founder Jen Strongin said that before Wi-Fi, “People talked to each other, strangers met each other." Wi-Fi is pretty new as far as non-techies using it. As Voltaire once said "Common sense is not so common." I think that the cafe could keep their Wi-Fi open on the weekends if they helped educate their customers about free Wi-Fi etiquette. To many of us, it might just seem like common sense.
Boston Wireless Advocacy Group created a "Do's and Don'ts" poster for cafes and restaurants who provide complimentary Wi-Fi. The idea is to provide tips to patrons who are using the free Wi-Fi. We're in the process of distributing it to Boston area locations and it's available online as a low-res PDF. It's a work-in-progress so if you have any ideas regarding how the poster could be improved, please let us know.
[This is a slightly modified version of an entry I originally wrote on my personal blog at sooz.com.]
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Comments
Time to get tough?
Sounds like they have some serious issues with some obnoxious customers. I wonder how those people keep their laptops powered up for six to eight hours? Extra battery packs? Or should the store be taking out the outlets these people would have to be using otherwise?
Good question!
That's an excellent question, Adam. It is interesting that people taking up space for hours and hours would be provided with complimentary electricity, too. That's why I suggested there is more to this story. When I'm at my local favorite with free Wi-Fi (True Grounds at 717 Broadway in Ball Square/Somerville) I usually don't plug in my power supply until after the battery has drained which reminds me to get up and order something.