I thought it'd be cool to start documenting all the places in SB that have free internet!

Our new office is at Anacapa and Cota so I cruised over to the Pierre LaFond Deli on lower state and am currently getting stoked on the free interenet and free coffee refills!

Click here for a Yahoo Map!

....oooo...nice.... the farmers market is starting too! Living downtown rocks!

Come hangout!

:-)

--------------------------------------------
Pierre La Fonds - lower State St.
Bogarts - State Street - La Arcada
Muddy Waters - Guttierrez
Reds - lower lower State
Coffee Cat - Anacapa
Coffee Grinder - Carpinteria
Chamomile Cafe - Carpinteria
--------------------------------------------

Muddy Waters and Reds are also wifi friendly, but my new favorite is BOGART's on Figueroa and State in La Arcada. Very very cool.

Good call on Bogarts! Dana's got the ins at this place....feel free to run up his tab. Serious - He's got a tab there...that's sweet. I think he has a black American Express card too!

Here's a map to Bogarts. Hit that place up and tell'em Dana sent you!

Click here for a Yahoo! Map

If you're in Carp, the Coffee Grinder and the Chamomile Cafe have free internet. I think the grinder might just be picking up the other Cafe's signal. And if you're down in Carp, you may as well come hang out at Tricia's house, where you also get free internet, compliments of her neighbors.

Coffee Cat is hot also...but you need to sit in the back to get a good signal.

Anyone find anything on Upper State, yet?

Welcome back Marcia!

You know froma business standpoint, I think it would be SUCH a wise idea to give free internet. It doesn't cost the business that much, and you would bring in more business.

One thing I'm learning about business is that it pays off to give the customer whatever you can, if it doesn't cost you much. It drives me nuts seeing people refuse to serve their customers.....case in point.......

Last year myself and a few of my friends went to Denny's all the time to do homework because they were open 24-7 and they had outlets for laptops. We would go 2-3 times a week and study. We would order drinks and coffee and usually a side dish everytime we were there and an entree about 30-40% of the time. It was a great deal. It was a tradition we loved and laughed about. We even got to know the waiters and waitresses there pretty well. Not too long ago I went in there with my laptop to work on some editing and to remind myself of "the good ol' days" spending all nighters there, but when I pulled out my laptop and went to plug it in, the waitress told me the owner was no longer allowing people to plug in their laptops. I couldn't believe it. He automatically made my decision never to go back to that resturant. You can argue and of course I can't see his electricity bills, but I would guess that he was really making a terrible business mistake.

Yeah for customer service!

Hey Chris, Thanks for the welcome back!

You're right, free wi-fi is a definitely cheap way to enhance customer service and customer loyalty. I really think that in time to come more cities are going to have hot zones (San Francisco is vowing to be all hot according to some articles I have read this week) that will be free.

I have a similar story for you. There is a coffee house a block from me that I would go to with my laptop maybe 3 times a week and work there. I brought up free wi-fi with the owner several times who said she would look into it as she thought it might be a good idea. At the time, there was only one other place in Solvang to get fee-based wi-fi.

About the same time that the coffeehouse with the fee-based wi-fi decided to go free, my hangout brought in, you guessed it, pay to play! I asked why they decided on this and they said they needed to turn tables and thought they would lose business if they offered free wifi. Well, guess what, they lost my business to the place up the street that is always busy, not only with walk-ins, but the tables are full of home business owners who conduct meetings there or just want to get out of the house and around other people while working!!!

Here's the biggest hoot! My assistant used to work the counter at my old haunt. He was rotfl when I told him about this. He said that the coffee house is open 13 hours a day and the only times that they are super busy are an hour in the morning and two hours at mid-day, the rest of the time the restaurant is dead as a doornail! The place I go to now is rocking all day long.

Free wi-fi rocks!

BTW, if you are ever in La Arcada and just need to download e-mail really fast without being obligated to a table, one of the offices in the area is active and there is a reasonably strong signal at the sculture outside of the art museum. I've used this before when I'm downtown for the day and parked at that lot.

Great stories and Great advice!

It's so important to think long term and these business that nickle and dime their loyal customers are making poor choices in my opinion.

I also think it's important for us to look at our business and (like Chris said) figure out how we can give more.

Mike Colon says, "Don't lower your price - RAISE your value!"

Cheers,
DJ

Well, it's a little bit harder for me... I miss all the wifi hot spots in Cali... Being in small town Colorado has definitely changed things for me. I mean I live in the mountains and I have a satalite connection, which with the weather is very tempermental. One day I will be back in a town where I can at least get DSL!!!

Oh wow! How fast is a that?

I've been looking into all sorts of internet options for our new place and one thing I learned was that internet companies advertise their speeds in "Kbps" which is not kilobytes per second! It's kilobits! A kilobit is 1/8 a kilobyte. I wasn't too happy to find out that my connection was 1/8 what I had expected. Just so you know KBps is kiloBYTES and that's what our files are all logged in.

:-)

QUOTE (DAVID JAY @ Dec 3 2004, 10:22 AM)

Oh wow! How fast is a that? I've been looking into all sorts of internet options for our new place and one thing I learned was that internet companies advertise their speeds in "Kbps" which is not kilobytes per second! It's kilobits! A kilobit is 1/8 a kilobyte. I wasn't too happy to find out that my connection was 1/8 what I had expected. Just so you know KBps is kiloBYTES and that's what our files are all logged in. :-)

David ~

What are you finding to be the best combination for speed and consistant signal. I have earthlink dsl and a linksys router. It seems sluggish to me and I have long periods of consistancy followed by days of having to reset...and reset...and reset

I guess cable is supposed to be faster, but I have had trouble changing companies in the past and don't feel like dealing with the potential hassle.

Guess I have a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude about it.

m.

BTW, come up with anymore WIFI freespots?

I've found out that bad signals can often be a result of what's call "packet loss" and it's a problem from the provider...but if you're having to reset often your issue might be more to do with a setting on the router or with the computer...all this is a bit beyond me so I'm sorry I'm not more help.

You are so funny, answering a post from 3 months ago!!!

The pocket loss sounds like the most obvious answer.

What did you ultimately end up with for internet in your office???

I was telling DJ... I found out that my laundry mat has wireless... I have yet to test it... but they have the stick in their window, and they even have free cable. I love hitting the place up at 2 or 3 a.m. to do laundry and watch free TV, and now I'll have to try out the internet.

It's on upper DeLaVina, I think the corner of Alamar and DeLaVina.

That's sweet Tim!

I love having places where I can pull up and park on the street to work when I'm between appointments. I have a few little spots where I can pull into a parking lot or park along the road and hook-up.

Now here's one more!

Go cable!!!!! We have Comcast High Speed Internet here and it's great!!!! They have their opitmum download speed at 3MB right now!

Nathan