Posted on May 28, 2007
One side effect of having all the SAS flights out cancelled, including the one I was booked on at 8am to London, is that I spent a whole day in Arlanda airport. My laptop battery doesn’t survive that long, so finding at least one power outlet became a priority around 11am. I found nowhere at all in terminal 5 where the power points were live, but a short walk into the Sky City area gets you to the East West cafe (towards the terminal 4 end of the area). This has a small seating area off the main walkway, at the back of which there was a power point that was live. Sky City has coverage for both Homerun and the Arlanda Airport wireless network, though at the back of the East West cafe the signals are pretty weak. Going a little further, down the moving walkway/ramp into terminal 4, right in front of you is the Simply Coffee cafe/bar. This has power points under the bar seating around its outer edge, and also some on the sides of the columns where the sofa seating is. Down here, although I could see what Windows claimed to be strong signals from…
Posted on May 26, 2007
I found three free Wi-Fi networks in Stockholm. One was an independent cafe, Café Edenborg, where there is both open Wi-Fi access and available power points for those battery recharge moments. The coffee was good too. The next one was in a local burger chain called Max. I saw two Max locations during my stay, but could only detect Wi-Fi in one of them. The one where the Wi-Fi was present did have a sticker on the door though indicating that WLAN was available. At that location, the connection was open to the internet without any need to sign in, or even accept terms & conditions. Finally, the most common of the free networks I found was SkypeZones. These free networks, which appear to be sponsored by Skype, are all over the city. They provide reasonably good strength outside on the street, and two networks: SkypeZones and SkypeZones_Phones. As with the other two networks, they are entirely open – no sign in page or terms and conditions page at all. I was able to surf the web, make Skype calls and even make SIP calls through VoiceStick at a number of these locations with no problem at all.
Posted on May 26, 2007
In every 7-Eleven store I found in downtown Stockholm there was a wireless network provided by Rover Rabbit. These had a very strong signal outside the store too (I believe that the dipole antenna over the doorway is in fact the Wi-Fi antenna, which would explain the signal quality!). They are a pre-paid only provider, selling access in units of 1 hour, 24 hours or one month. Unlike most pre-paid services though they expire on calendar time after first use, irrespective of the amount of use. These hotspots are now supported through Devicescape now – just enter the username & password from the scratch card, or, if you buy online, activate with your browser and use the random looking username/password from the popup window (your Rover Rabbit website username & password will not let you get online sadly).
Posted on May 26, 2007
Walking around downtown Stockholm on my first night there, I came across a McDonalds location where, in addition to The Cloud Wi-Fi service that is available in all McDonalds locations in Stockholm, there was also a FON access point visible. I saw three or four FON access points around Stockholm, though I only managed to get connections to two of them using the N95 – the others were too weak for the N95 to associate with successfully.
Posted on May 25, 2007
The next city in the trip is Stockholm, in Sweden. Here at the airport there is a hotspot with pre-paid credentials (network name is LFVPUBLIC). The minutes that you buy remain valid for up to 30 days from first use, so frequent travelers through Arlanda Airport can buy time through a scratch card, add the credentials to their Devicescape account and get online automatically while sipping coffee waiting for their flight. I did also find a Telia Homerun location in the Sky City area (where the Roberts Coffee stand in the photo is located), and you can just about get a connection to the Radisson hotel’s Netpoint service too from the same area.
Posted on May 25, 2007
One of the networks that I have been looking for on my trip around northern Europe is FON. Here, not far from Hackescher Hof, I found a FON location where I could get online with the Nokia N95 and make VoIP calls (using VoiceStick, my new favourite VoIP provider). I’ll provide a more detailed update of my FON experience at the end of the trip, but I have seen FON APs in every city I’ve visited so far on this trip.
