Firstly Pittwater council announced a free Wi-Fi hotspot in Newport Village, along Barrenjoey Road. The goal was to help improve business by encouraging folk to stop in with their laptops, check their email and have a latte or grab a meal. What a great idea!
See the Pittwater press release
I checked the MyKp website to find out a little more and they mentioned that there were two hot spots:
| nsw | newport - pittwater | newport patisserie | robertson rd | free | ►view map |
| nsw | newport - pittwater | newport village | barrenjoey road | free | ►view ma |
My first stop was Second Nature in Coles Rd. No surprises there, only one secured network showed up, so no chance of connectivity. So strolled up to the post office and posted a letter and stopped off at the Burnt Fingers Cafe for some lunch.
The MyKP free network showed up, I connected, I was ready to start checking email and read the newspaper. Coool 8-) Ummm... the connection was so slow I could not get past the MYKP registration page. I was about 2 shops up from the Newport Patisserie. Perhaps you had to be in the patisserie to get an adequate connection. Ah well.... I finished my lunch and strolled by the patisserie, however for some strange reasons I kept walking: I figured I'd go check it out at Eat-It around the corner as I heard that it was another hotspot.
Seated inside Eat-it, I opened my laptop and.... um no connection. I asked one of the staff who told me that it was hit and miss for folk who had tried. I moved to the front of the shop and got a weak signal... actually it started off strong for the first few seconds and then got very weak. I managed to get to the MyKP home page again and tried to register. BTW, this may not be apparent to any old user but I assumed that I had to do this, as trying to browse to other sites were futile.
Anyway after about 15 mins of trying I gave up.
So my 2 cents: If the council is going to try and boost business by providing free internet access, this is not the way to do it. Test the connectivity from the defined areas before announcing it! Perhaps they can improve the quality of the connections or place the hotspots in different positions, or more of them.
Basically, the current connectivity is a hoax for general for passers by to drop-by, grab a bite or drink, get their email, check out what's happening on Facebook or read the SMH online. If anything it will most probably cause frustration and may even cause folk not to come back and try it out.
However, if you're up for a treasure hunt and have some time to waste to try and find the best locations for connectivity, then it could be a fun few hours. Let us know where the "magic" hotspots are please?
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