I got mobile broadband for my laptop a few months back. Signal pick up in most places has been fine – the only places I have not got signals have been in chain cafes that supply T-mobile/BT open net broadband services of thier own, that you have to sign up to and pay for.

Each time I have used my laptop in such a place I have gone through logging on procedures for my Vodafone kit but right at the end, I always get a message that says my broadband stick has a serious error and is not working. If however I leave the building and sit in the car there is never a problem. I have logged on in other buildings with sucess, I try to get a seat near a window so the signal reads as good. So do the cafes have a signal blocking system to get you to pay for their connection or is it some other tech reason?

I know mobile phone signals can be blocked (by cinemas and suchlike), but it is illegal to do so in this country so they don’t.

Two things:

1. Try wearing a tinfoil hat; and

2. What on earth are you doing patronising the likes of Stabucks?

“it is illegal to do so in this country so they don’t”

why woudl starbucks etc be any different?

i’ve been told some wireless retail POS systems operate on the same frequency as 3G does . often in restaurants my phone has shown a 3G signal but fails to connect to anything

Doown here in Kettering, there’s a “Free Public Wi-Fi” network floating around that you can detect but not connect to!!

1) Sadly sometimes a chain cafe is the only cafe in an area.

2) I dont know if the legislation for mobile broadband signals is the same as for normal phone signals never having read it, I have no idea if there is any legal difference between the 2. Besides, people do think they can get away with doing dodgy stuff on the quiet – hence my orig question.

3) My foil hat tended to set off the security systems by the shop doors, even when I took it off and put it in my bag.

4) I will skip moving to Kettering then, as it sounds even tougher to get connected.

It does seem odd though, that the only place I get ‘your modem is broken’ type messages is in chain cafes. Its the only time I ever see that message on my pc.

Has anyone managed to get their own broadband to connect in a chain cafe?

steveb – not just kettering, it’s something to do with HP machines setting up a ghost network or something

Ahh that’ll explain it as all the printers/plotters in the office are of the HP variety

steveb – not just kettering, it’s something to do with HP machines setting up a ghost network or something

wow – now that does sound worrying

It’s probably more likely that there’s an XP build device in the office which has wireless enabled. There’s a bug in XP where a wireless device will transmit the SSID of the last access point it connected to succesfully if it is not associated with anything at the time..

I often go to McDonalds for the free wi-fi; Wetherspoons pubs too.

There are cafe’s which use The Cloud, which I get onto, as well as pubs like my local, which is really handy, if I want to do a quick browse, or download a couple of songs off iTunes. I can see the T-Mobile network in my local Starbucks but I’m damned if I’m going to pay through the nose for broadband access by the hour. Further to the Kettering network, I was down in Glastonbury late last year, where there is a supposedly free wifi network. I could see it, sometimes, but there was no way I could get any connection to it, so howit’z supposed to work I don’t know.