Last Friday I had 2 appointments, and like most entrepreneurs they were at coffee shops. Each shop offered WiFi, with their own access method and process – which is more of the norm than the exception today.

My first stop was Caribou Coffee who offers free WiFi, providing you buy something. The barista will give you a code upon request that you will need to enter into the default Web page that comes up when you log into your computer. The code is only good for one hour, but you can get another code upon request. My guess is that it is at the discretion of the staff, and buying more should help you get a new code.

Starbucks was my second stop, and they use T-Mobile’s HotSpot service. As I am a T-Mobile customer, I pay an extra $10 a month for HotSpot on top of the $20 I pay for data service for my Treo smartphone. If I didn’t have T-Mobile or its data service, I would have to pay a daily fee under $10 or a monthly fee around $30.

Before I left for my meetings I saw this article on the cost of unused WiFi service, and I could relate to it. Had my meetings been elsewhere, I may have had to pay a different way, or not at all if I went to a forward-thinking locale. There is certainly money to be made from Internet access, and it makes sense to be forward-thinking for how you yourself will use the Internet and plan ahead as to where you go and how you connect.

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