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The Civilized Explorer Wireless Access Page

WiFi has become a hot issue in the United States, with many access points (also called hot spots) now coming online throughout the country. We have links to cyber cafes, so we thought we would add wireless access points to our site as well. As with the cyber cafe page, there is no hope of staying current, so be prepared for some dead links.

HotelChatter
Links to wifi if you search; just type WiFi in the box near the top of the page and click search, and you will get the best and worst WiFi hotels by year. Interesting information from the site: Some hotels that claim to provide WiFi do not have it in the rooms; it may be in the lobby, sometimes in very limited areas in the lobby ("We call it the 'Wi-Fi Chair'"). Service varies; if you absolutely need WiFi, confirm its availability where you need it.
WiFiFreeSpot
A list of links to free WiFi locations throughout the world. The links in the Caribbean are rather spotty, with no links shown in St. Barth, for example.
Geektools
A private list gone public. You may use the Web version or a text-based version to search for hotspots in specific locations -- a total of 103 at the time of our visit, but it lists locations not only in the US, but in Anguilla, Thailand, and other places remote to the US. The nice thing about Geektools is that it works on just about any computer, even using Lynx.
HotspotList
The opposite of Geektools in terms of appearance -- a cluttered page full of links, frames, ads, animated ads, and more! Calling itself "The Definitive Hotspot Directory," it requires that you enter a city, state, or ZIP, although you may browse by region. Ads pop up all over your monitor, and you get results.
Hotspot Finder
Catchy names do not abound. You may search by address, city, state, country, region, ZIP or postal code, or you may browse by countries, regions, and cities. Browsing California turned up 450 hotspots, listed 10 to a page. Each page gives links to provider information and pricing, along wit the name and address of the provider. With 450 hits, 10 at a page, we decided more specific searches were in order, but some areas will be better suited to browsing than California.
Hotspot Locator
A JavaScripted search engine which requires you to step through country, and for the US asks for state, city, address, venue, and so on, for as much specific information you can give (only the country is required, though). The list gives you both wired and wireless access points, with names and addresses of the locations, and each locations distance from a location you specify.
Shmoo Group
An awful name with worse names for its projects (or a really cute name with even cuter and funnier names for its projects). At the time of our visit it claimed to have 595 wireless access points in its database. You can search by location, or the really hip can search by lat/long.
Starbucks
Find a wired store by selecting "Wireless Hotspot Stores" from the "Store Type" menu and entering a Postal Code, then adjust the "Search Radius" as appropriate. Startbucks is powered by T-Mobile, so you need a service account (see T-Mobile below).
Surf and Sip
Cyber cafes offer this service. Enter your ZIP code and see what locations are near you. Some charge, some are free. This Web site is aimed at gettting coffee shops to sign on, so not much help is available for the computer user other than the search function.
T-Mobile
Commericial access provider with locations in Starbucks, hotels, airports. T-Mobile offers a variety of accounts including pay as you go, daily, monthly, and annual. Read the footnotes about early termination fees -- this is a cell phone company, as you may know. T-Mobile says it has partnered with international service providers for thousands of locations around the world.
Wayport
Commercial provider of WiFi access in hotels, airports, and McDonald's. Wayport provides "Laptop Lane" in some airports -- private offices with copiers, staff, package and shipping, printing, copying, faxing, and desktop PCs. Use the site's search function to see if there are enough locations to warrant becoming a member; otherwise, prices for daily use are reasonable.
Wi-Fi Hotspots in Airports
Totally confusing. The home page lists many locations as "Airport: Concourse C, Gate C4, United States." We have no clue what airport this is until we read further into the multi-colored text to find the name buried in an address. Unfortunately, the links are alphabetized by that description ("Concourse C," "Between Concourses B&C," "2207 Airport Blvd"), so we are clueless on how to find information about any specific airport. The links are colored blue, and not link text is colored red. The information is great, but the layout is not.
WiFinder
Search or browse. The home page is the most helpful we have seen, with browse links all over the world, along with specific search criteria. You may search for free or paid sites, and limit your search to 802.11b or g. The site claims to list over 10,000 hotspots worldwide.
Wi-Fi Zone Finder
Search for WiFi access providers through a rather clumsy series of pages -- select your country (USA, for example), then select a state, then get a list of cities and select one, get a list of companies. The site does provide a nice feature -- you can search by location type, such as marina, airport, shopping center. You may also search by provider if you already have an account you wish to use. If you really hit the jackpot with lists of sites, you may download the list as a Word or Excel file, a very nice feature. If you have aWAP- enable phone, you may use that to search for sites.

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