Damn. The Panera Bread down the strip mall from Starbuck’s must just be out of reach of the access point. Looks like another $2.45 hot chocolate is in my future…

The T Mobile hotspot at Starbucks works well. I’m working in Washington, D.C. this week but my hotel doesn’t have in-room DSL and my dial-up is whacked. I checked on free community wireless access points but D.C. isn’t a hotbed of wi-fi activity apparently. Lucky for me the local Starbucks had a T Mobile hotspot. So, I went in, fired up the laptop, and signed up for a free 24-hour trial. After that, the account turns in to a pay-as-you-go deal ($2.99 for the first 15 minutes and $0.25 per minute after that). They also have monthly plans but I’m not going to use it that much.

The signal and transfer rate were better than I get at home on my setup. Pretty cool.

For me, Starbucks is kind of a weird scene. I’m not a coffee drinker so I rarely go there. But it worked. I snagged a Grande hot chocolate and proceeded to get some serious transactions done while listening to retro Christmas tunes and watching the hip crowd enjoy their mochafrappawhathaveyous.