Free airport wireless access makes up for taxi queues

Net Results: Like many other travellers, I have my gripes about Dublin Airport.

For example, why is it that by 7 a.m. on any weekday not a single newsagent or food outlet can offer change back for a purchase? I don't mean all those people who arrive with €50 notes because Irish banks in their wisdom have made the €50 the note of preference in all ATMs, apparently in the belief that the general public enjoys torturing cab drivers with large notes for small fares.

I mean, at the airport, they don't have any change at all - not for a fiver, not even small coins, because the early morning rush of business passengers cleans them out of it. It is the same every week. Surely by this point merchants must realise they are losing hundreds of purchases every weekday because they do not give a large enough float to the beleaguered cashiers? No, apparently not.

I've watched things nearly come to fisticuffs over an Irish Times or a hot chocolate as the foolish purchaser, who imagines that these shops function just like any other, finds she cannot take away her item of choice without the exact change she does not have at 6 a.m.

The pettiness of having to pay for a luggage cart is another real winner of an idea. I laughed when I heard Aer Rianta was introducing this measure, when in San Francisco prominent citizens, politicians, and everyday Joes lobbied for years and years to get the airport to improve its image and that of San Francisco by offering free carts to international passengers at least.

The main argument was that nearly every airport in the world outside the US offers free carts. Sleepy long-haul passengers without dollars to get a cart shouldn't have to schlep their bags through the arrivals hall. Every time I fly into SFO on a long haul flight I get a little jolt of joy when I grab a free cart. A small gesture perhaps, but great for the airport and city's image as a welcoming port of call.

Then there's the taxi rank at Dublin Airport, which stands just about three feet beyond the canopy that protects pedestrians from the elements in what we all must sadly admit is a rainy country.

So there you are in a long queue waiting for the taxis to come up from their separate long queue down the road, and it is pouring. You wonder why no one thought, gee, the people will have to stand and wait outside, where it often rains, this being Ireland. Rather than have them submit to the deluge while they look forlornly at the nice canopy only three feet away, we will extend the canopy. But no.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to find that Dublin Airport - or at least, the airport in partnership with the telecoms operators - is offering free wireless access. Free! How enlightened is that?

This week, when I flipped open my little wireless-enabled Mac laptop to see what I could find while waiting for a flight, what popped up but an O2 connection. And that connection was free. It turns out that three providers - Esat/BT, Vodafone, and O2/Sigma - have been offering free access at Dublin, Cork and Shannon throughout the EU presidency.

I didn't have a lot of time before boarding, only about 20 minutes, but I was surprised at how useful it was to have this little chunk of internet-connected time. I could clear a few emails, respond to a friend, rearrange some dinner plans, check a few websites, get some background information for a story I was working on.

I know it sounds silly - these are everyday actions any of us do while at home or at work. And it's not as if getting a net connection in an airport is a unique and exciting event - even if it did take Dublin Airport ages to get any kind of internet access in the terminals at all.

But when a cost is involved - and the costs for wireless access remain quite off-puttingly high - I'll opt to wait for the press room at my destination, if I'm on a work trip, or perhaps will check email or websites from my mobile or PDA, where the charge is significantly less and the billing invisible (it just goes on the monthly statement).

Even in hotel rooms - or perhaps I should say, especially in hotel rooms - I'd rather wait for the free option that inevitably arises later on; or if really desperate, I'll go to a cheap internet cafe.

Most people I know with wireless-enabled laptops or even plain old Ethernet seem to feel the same way I do - sure would love to get online, but not if I have to pay, especially not if I have to pay a lot (the charge was €4 per hour at Nice Airport when I was there recently. Yikes).

All of which suggests that people view internet access as part of that intractable strange thing, the internet economy, where people are highly selective about what they will hand over money for, whether it be products or services.

This is part of internet heritage (so to speak): once upon a time it was all pretty much a gift economy, where you might take something out for free, read some information, download a little program, but you also put something back - added some information, wrote a program for others to download, ran a bulletin board, whatever.

That legacy still influences the way millions of net users place value on services a decade or two later. We don't generally like to pay for information, we look for free downloads, we don't want to be charged per email even if it would help get rid of spam.

I love having public wireless access, and I can be more productive when I have such access even in short bursts of time, but I am reluctant to pay for it. I don't yet value the convenience of immediate access over the cost of getting it. I'd rather wait or look for an alternative.

So what are access providers to do? Well, partnerships that offer net access as a service are an obvious value-add. I would definitely choose a hotel that offered free wireless access. I would see free wireless access in the Aer Lingus business lounge as a far-preferable perk to massages, free newspapers, or even those individually wrapped chocolate Kimberley biscuits they have in the bowl up there.

And for now I am feeling a warm glow towards Dublin Airport and tell people all the time about this cool free service. Not surprisingly, most people who travel with laptops already know about it and are similarly positive in praise of this offering.

It's unfortunate that the free surfing time will draw to a close at the end of the month, when the presidency moves on. Aer Rianta says it is concluding a tender process to provide wireless access shortly throughout the airport - as a commercial service.

Alas. All I can say is, if they decided instead to offer it for free, it would more than make up for getting wet in the taxi line and paying for that darn luggage cart.