The Strandbad Mitte café recently opened up their DSL line to visiting customers via WLAN. Hooray! I do not remember how long I have been waiting for this feature to arrive. Being able to do real net work and to order a coffee at any time is the quality in life I have been looking for all the time.

So here I am, reviewing my stuff, listening to a techie webcast in the background, chatting with a few friends and getting real work done. This is the kind of decadence I like.

I never understood why the cafés didn‘t get it: a DSL flatrate is so cheap and a WLAN access point doesn‘t cost much in addition. But for the customers this simple installation is a boon. And it is digging the grave for the commercial hotspots that try to sell you WLAN airtime for being „connected“ to the Internet.

Telecommunication companies are so stupid. First they thought WAP was a good idea. It wasn‘t. Then they thought UTMS would save their asses soon. Well, they spent by far too much money on it and won‘t make much money with it soon because they didn‘t know how people use the Internet. While they might appreciate big bandwidth there is something that is by far more valuable: being connected all the time, even with small bandwidth. So, GPRS could be a big winner as it provides just that on top of the well-established GSM networks. But high prices make people stay away.

So then they thought WLAN is the big winner and they hopped on to the bandwagon of the New Hype (TM). But it‘s going to kill them as WLAN is difficult to control and Free Café Internet will kill their revenues. Hope it does. Suckers.