I just got back from my 10 day trip down under – 7 days in NZ and 3 in AUS. I love traveling and very fortunate that I get to travel for work – and my company is a fan of the Work-cation. The work-cation is a great concept – since the company is paying to fly you somewhere already, might as well take a couple extra days and experience where you are instead of rushing in and out. Glad to be back and not to be a sap, but I missed you.
I felt naked down under because Wifi is not free, not fast, and entirely inconvenient. Even my $250 a night hotel only had 15 minutes free and in the lobby only. Oh, you can pay for internet in your room but only if you have an Ethernet cable connection (direct only). Computers still have those?
Thankfully Starbucks is there but even then you only get an hour and when it runs out you have to buy another coffee or they won’t top you up.
We are spoiled in North America with free, unadulterated WiFi all over the place. My CITY has free wifi. In fact, I am writing this post at a city owned arena on my phone.
Life is rough.
I felt like I was in a third world WiFi country that was under attack by the Russians. I even started asking around if anyone knew J3w3l but was afraid she would think me an extraordinary stalker for traveling so far to borrow her Wifi.
And none of this has to do with the purpose of this blog post. The title of which I borrowed from Gregg Easterbrook at Tuesday Morning Quarterback who in many of his articles (not the one I linked) shares societal insights on why the Apocalypse truly must be coming. (He’s a fun read if you like smart people and fantasy football. He’s the Zubon of ESPN.com)
So here is what happened this morning that makes me think it is indeed on its way. It’s picture day for my son’s hockey team. Usually that means getting to the rink an hour early, getting in full equipment (except helmets), lining the team up for a group photo, getting some individual shots (faux action, normally) then ordering a package with the team shot to remember the season it was, and also a bunch of actual hockey cards that are cool to hand out to friends and family. As you can imagine, it can sometimes be tough to get all the kids on time and lined up well in full gear. It takes some time and coordination. No fear, they have a new solution.
Photoshop.
There was no team photo this year. Instead, They are going to build one from the individual shots. I am sure that will look perfectly natural.
Next, instead of playing real hockey they will just all login together and play NHL 15 three times a week. Driving to the rink is so inconvenient.
In the future you will never need to leave your house. It’s the dream.
The Wall-E universe beckons…
Welcome to Australia lol… The third world of the internet. Did you get to experience our gaming ping lol, that’s an eye opener for a few tech savy tourists
I also didn’t think it was a possibility to not pay for internet at your hotel although usually the entire hotel is wifi as well and your payment gives you a code to login with. Most hotels anyway.
And yeh, good wifi is hard to find out and about, some good coffee shops have it just open and free, some as much as you want with a purchase. MacDonald’s is ok as well. Also.. Most of the train network now has free wifi I believe, or at least they are rolling it out.
I want get into the reasons for this mess because that would be a way of text lol. Oh yeh, and I’m in Brisbane. I’m guessing for work you would have went to Sydney.
Yes, Melbourne and Sydney. I was in Brisbane 4 years ago!
I am actually really curious why it is a mess, maybe someday you will make a blog post of it. It really makes no sense to an outsider.
The hotel was a bit outdated, granted (other hotels did have it) but even at another hotel I was at, you had to pay per day PER DEVICE. They wouldn’t let you use it among multiple devices.
Again, backwards =)
C
Mostly to do with that, internet infrastructure used to be a publicly owned company and then got sold off. So of course no competition then, price gouging and very little improvement since as it was one company that owned all the infrastructure.
Of course now we are stuck mostly on an archaic copper network which has heavy limitations, infrastructure that can’t support the demand and so it gets a little throttled in regards to download/upload allowances. Very expensive for businesses to have what they need thus the extra costs. Also why servers haven’t been as forthcoming. Slowly changing though as more companies come in and build their own stuff.
There is a plan for being upgraded to fibre throughout the country but the current party is in the process of breaking it.
Great, thanks! Nice to hear some reasoning.