Living in the Spokane Valley I don't get into downtown Spokane very often. That's usually not a big deal, but a little more than a week ago, the City of Spokane launched a huge, free WiFi "Hot Zone" downtown. Yesterday was the first time I had a chance to try it out.
After running a short errand (my excuse for going in the first place) I stopped to treat myself to a late lunch at Domini's, and while I was there I had to break out my handy iPaq and check out the Spokane Hot Zone for myself. Before going in to the restaurant I took out the iPaq and let it look for available networks. After a few short seconds, it had identified several,.including the 'Spokane Hot Zone'. As it finds networks, it attempts to connect to them one-at-a-time. I interrupted this process and explicitly told it to connect to the Hot Zone. A few short seconds later -- Voila! -- I got a 'Connected' notification and the WiFi status indicator changed to show a connection as well.
I opened PocketIE and selected ESPN from my list of favorites, and sure enough, up came the wireless version of the ESPN homepage! It wasn't necessarily the fastest connection, but the important thing was that there I was, sitting in my car, checking out the latest Wimbledon matches. After going into the restaurant an getting a booth back away from the windows, the connectiion dropped. I could still see the network, but the iPaq could never quite keep the connection. Once outside again, it was came back immediately.
Now I'm no newbie to the magic of WiFi -- but I still get a huge kick out of being well-connected so often when away from my home office. Overall I was pretty happy with the Hot Zone, and no doubt connectivity will get nothing but better over time.
Maybe the City of Spokane got it right for a change.