For the past two months I've been on the town in search of cool places to get free wireless. When I first moved into my new apartment a year ago, my computer picked up a plethora of local unsecured Internet connections. But one by one, slow but sure, each of them got replaced by a secured connection. Is it because individuals and business within internet-shot of me are suddenly up to a series of shady activities? I haven't noticed my locality swell into a hot-bed of crime, so I'm guessing that the same thing happened to them as happened to Neilbert and Saundra—they got a new modem, and it was easier to make it secured than unsecured.

A city teeming with wireless internet, but no place to sit

A few years back when Neilbert and Saundra first got wireless internet, they set it up, it was unsecured and that was that. We joked around about our neighbors sitting out on our yard to get a connection, or about hackers breaking in and stealing our computer files. But as it turned out, most of our neighbors got wireless shortly thereafter, and even if they did try to connect, it never interfered with our use. In my experience, unsecured internet more or less polices itself—if you're close to the router, you stay connected, if you're further away, you get kicked off more often. As for hackers, for the duration of the time my parents had unsecured wireless, we never had a problem. Our own anti-virus and firewall software kept us in good shape. When after a couple years a thunder-storm fried our modem we sent away for a new one and in the course of set-up we decided we'd leave it unsecured... but we couldn't get it to work. We tried to set up an unsecured network, but try as we might we couldn't get our computers to connect. We tried switching it to a secured network and... poof! All the sudden it worked perfectly. Think about it folks, it's in the best interest of internet service providers for their subscribers to have secured networks. Why can't we all just buy our own internet service, you ask? It's just like $20 to $30 bucks a month, right? Well, not for us impoverished students and starving writers who don't have cable service and don't have landlines. I'd have to activate and pay for a landline if I wanted to get DSL (and then pay for DSL on top of that). Comcast only charges $30 to customers who are already purchasing cable. For internet alone it's $50. So no, I can't afford it—I need that money for health insurance.

Yes, folks, sometimes even I have to rant against capitalism.

PPG Plaza: Watch out for the spray

Oh well. Until such time as a new unsecured network crops up in my area, or I'm making enough money actually to afford my own connection, I am cursed to wander the city in search of a free wireless connection. And so it only makes sense to chronicle my experiences, right? So, I start with perhaps the most obvious free wireless in the city, the City of Pittsburgh Downtown free WiFi.

The City of Pittsburgh offers two free hours of WiFi throughout the downtown areas. Sounds great, right? Well, when it's working, sure. A couple weeks ago I went downtown in effort to get on the Internet, but it just wouldn't work. I started at PPG Plaza—not working. I got up and moved to the outside seating area near the PNC building. Nothing. After wasting an hour, walking around, trying to get a connection, I went up to the Carnegie library and just connected there. Okay, so maybe they were just having technical difficulties that day. Can't condemn the whole system for one day of service blips. For the record, I've had no trouble with getting the connection either before or since.

The biggest problem with the downtown free WiFi is one of practicality. In order to take advantage of it, you have to find a place to sit down and open your computer (assuming that most people aren't so skilled at wandering the streets while surfing the net on an open laptop). If you work downtown, then maybe this is your office, or the lobby of your building. But then, you probably already have an internet connection at your office, right? And random folks like me who are not employed downtown can't just wander into your comfy lobby. I could go to a coffee shop or other restaurant to connect... but wait, that defeats the point of totally free wireless. Most coffee shops and an increasing number of restaurants offer their own free wireless... "free" wireless with a very obvious price. If you use the wireless, you buy their stuff. If you go into a coffee shop and sit down, you're going to be expected to buy some coffee whether you're using the downtown WiFi or the coffee shop WiFi.

Mellon Square: Pretty fountains, disturbing odor

In order truly to take advantage of the full "freeness" of the downtown WiFi, you have to find a common area with seating. These include the aforementioned PPG outdoor plaza which has tables and seating around the central fountain (it's probably not a good idea to open up your laptop near the fountain on a windy day, though). There's a small area of benches and even some industrial mesh tables and seats next to the PNC building off of Wood Street. There's Mellon Square, but damn is it rank. Who's in charge of the upkeep on Mellon Square anyway? It always smells terrible. But even if you've lost all use of you olfactory nerve, you'll notice a common thread in these locales. They're all outside. Okay, so maybe there's a certain charm to the thought of being outside in the breeze and the sun while working online, rather than being cooped up in the house... but who are we kidding? This is Pittsburgh. This fantasy might come true on the twenty summer days when it's sunny enough and warm enough to compute outside. But what about all those rainy days? Noticed them much? And has anyone thought to consider, oh, say, winter? It would seem that the free WiFi may just be rendered pointless for two thirds of the year due to the obvious discomfort of sitting outside for extended periods of time.

There is yet one glimmer of hope, though. There are a few indoor common areas downtown made possible by the food courts in rather large office buildings. PPG has a food court right off of Market Square, and Oxford Center has one off of Grant Street. Sometime when the weather is spiteful and I'm feeling adventurous I shall venture down into the food courts and test the free WiFi. Will it work even in the depths of towering office buildings within cavernous food courts? Stay tuned...