Now that we have a wireless card for our laptops, I have been paying more attention to the wireless internet service they offer at Starbucks through T-Mobile. They have several different plans, but I think we might try their Prepay 300 plan. You buy 300 minutes for $50, which works out to ¢16.67 per minute, and then use them whenever you want. The only catch is that the minimum number of minutes for a session is 10 minutes. So if you just wanted to log in quickly to see if you received an important e-mail, it is going to cost you $1.67.

They also have a plan for ¢10 per minute, but the minimum session is 60 minutes. There are also a couple of unlimited use plans for $30 and $40 per month. These would be great if you were a traveling salesman.

We are thinking about trying the Prepay 300 plan for when Sheri is on call. If she got paged with a problem while we were out having fun on the weekend, we could just find a Starbucks, and she could be logged into her company's network in minutes. She could fix the problem on her PC, call the network control center from her cell phone to make sure everything looks good on their side, and then we could continue what we were doing. We could probably even do that from the car in Starbuck's parking lot without going in the store. The range of their network connections is about 300 feet. She could probably even turn in an expense report for what ever connection costs she incurs.

We also thought this would be a neat idea on vacations. Not only to keep a travel diary on our blogs, but to get any questions answered in regards to what to do next, check the local weather forecast, find local restaurants, attractions, etc.

In New York there are ten McDonald's stores that will give you one hour of free wireless access when you buy a combo meal. You can buy just access for $3 per hour. I think eventually you will see places offering free wireless internet access just to get you into their stores/restaurants.