According to GoTime, Cap Hill tops all other neighborhoods in the number of places with free wi-fi. Out of all these places, where have you gotten fast connections? Vivace on Broadway is the fastest I’ve experienced to-date.
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But dependable is better. I’ve had quite a few episodes of ‘oh shit the wifi is down and i’ve already bought a coffee’ moments at Vivace Brix than any other. Which means it’s happened 1x per month. But still, a drag.
Not sure about fastest but I’ve never been sad at Oddfellows (where I sit right now). I’m also a big fan of Tully’s parking lot on 19th/Aloha when in a late night pinch when home system has gone down.
I’ve had no problems with speed or reliability at Kaladi Bros (sp?) on Pike or Bauhaus. KB is particularly conducive to getting things done if you work at home, too, ’cause they have a side “community room” where people have meetings. I have a pretty darn slow connection at home, I should say, to put this in context…
Online Coffee on 14th and Pine is very fast and reliable – they are true to their name. Remedy Tea is also pretty good.
I like Online Coffee on Olive (a couple blocks down from Broadway). They’ve been reliable every time I’ve gone, and they never turn off or restrict the WiFi like Vivace (the Broadway + Denny one, which is now the light rail parking lot) used to do on weekends to discourage the laptop squatters.
SMK above said he’s had no problems with Bauhaus, so I’ll put in a vote of dissent on that… a couple times when I’ve gone on weekends their wireless has been so overwhelmed that it was slowed almost to modem speeds. On weekends in the afternoon there are often 10 or 20 laptop users there.
I haven’t gone to a coffee shop with a laptop in almost a year now though, so it could have changed.
I work from home, telecommuting to my job in CA. I have a remote machine, located in CA. I connect to the network using a VPN, then use remote desktop to my machine in CA. I’ve lived here for four years, and have used a lot of coffee shops for my work.
Here are my findings:
Online (14th & Pine): Always fast, always reliable (4 years ago, this wasn’t the case. They’ve greatly improved.)
Insomniax (15th & Denny): Not always fast, but reliable
Remedy tea (15th & Harrison): Not always fast or reliable (though one of the owners recently upgraded their equipment so it’s faster than it used to be, but still not super fast)
Victrola: Their system is set up so I can’t use the VPN, which makes them useless to me for work. I’ve only used their system a couple of times not work related, and they seemed slow.
22 Doors: If you sit outside in the patio section, close to Victrola, you can use the Victrola network. Fairly slow, but I believe that’s distance related.
Cafe Ladro: Not always fast but reliable
Faux Starbucks: Always fast, always reliable
Volunteer Park Cafe: Generally fast, always reliable
Vivace on Broadway: Acceptable speed (I wouldn’t call it fast) but not always reliable. However, plugging in (dedicated ethernet ports in the meeting room) I get much better results — much faster and more reliable.
I was surprised by the wifi at Caffe Vita being relatively quick (I was streaming good quality video without any stalls/buffering) on a Saturday afternoon with at least 6-10 other people using laptops in the upstairs section. Nice coffee too :)
Ok, so at $25 for the day Office Nomads is not exactly free and there are advantages to that. We also don’t have midday mom and baby meet-ups and you can hang out all day without having to worry about buying another coffee. We do offer a free trial day so you can get a feel for things and make sure you can get your work done here. Wednesdays after work we hit up a happy hour close by. When was the last time you went for beers with the person sitting next to you at a coffee shop? And what coffee shop has conference rooms and free printing?
Disclaimer: I’m one of the owners… and I’ll probably insult your mom if you sit next to me.
do you get a commission from linda everytime you plug her ventures????
I either go to Joe Bar, Vivace Brix or Oddfellows when I need wifi. They’re all great and I’ve never had connection issues.