Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Make a "run to the border" for your free Wi-Fi

Tech Note by: Steven Combs, Ph.D.
Longtime Doc’s Tech Notes readers know I like to keep track of free Wi-Fi hot spots when they are added to my favorite businesses. And I am embarassed to admit that Taco Bell is one of those locations. But their $2 meals are just so tempting on those days when the budget is tight. Imagine my glee when this report came down.

PRweb Reports:
Taco Bell Corp. and Indoor Direct, Inc., owner of The Restaurant Entertainment Network, have reached a long-term agreement to be the first to install in-store television network and free Wi-Fi solutions in all 5,600 Taco Bell locations throughout the United States. After the 5,600 locations are installed by 2015, The Restaurant Entertainment Network will reach approximately 48 million Taco Bell customers each month. Each location will have The Restaurant Entertainment Network installed, which consists of a point of sale and dining room network plus installation of free Wi-Fi for guests.
The installation of their own in-store television is an interesting idea as well. Hardee's has a similiar system but I wonder how much traffic this will actually drive. Wi-Fi yes, in-store TV, I'm not so sure about. What do you all think?
Notebooks: ,

2 additions to this Tech Note.:

  1. I'm curious if you have any concerns using free/public wi-fi? I'm not up to date on issues regrading wi-fi security, but I'm knowledgeable enough to be afraid of using unsecured networks.

    Thoughts?

    ReplyDelete

  2. umchaos (love the name by the way), Wi-Fi security is important and you should of course consider the security implications of using public Wi-Fi. My personal thoughts are as such. If the site uses a secure socket (https rather than http), I'm safe and secure. So I always force Google to make an https connection for common browsing. Also, the stuff I browse on a public connection is generally nothing of value (i.e. news, weather, blog posts, etc.)

    I also NEVER connect to any important financial sites over public Wi-Fi. Again, it is probably safe since they are normally secure connections, but there are other ways to grab bits as they fly through the air.

    I should also add that I am a Mac user. I'm not naive enough to think that I am invulnerable to attack on public Wi-Fi, but I do know it is much easier to get "hacked" on a Windows machine.

    Apply some common sense and cautious browsing habits and I think you will be fine. Not an in-depth answer, but hopefully it will help.

    ReplyDelete

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