Turns out that Wellington has quite extensive wireless coverage in the CBD. A local broadband access company, CityLink, which already provides a fibre-optic network also operates an 802.11b network called CafeNET. Turns out that today the whole of Lambton Quay has gone live as a ‘Hot Zone’.

The company is a commercial concern, so you have to pay to log on. They charge on bandwidth usage, NZ$20 for 70 Megs, NZ$80 for 350 (c. 7.50 and 30 pounds sterling), although they are doing a free promo each weekend in Dec. I have no idea whether the rate is reasonable or not, but if it ain’t I might find the motivation to install the gzip plugin on this site to try and cut back on bandwidth, seeing as I reload the damn page about ten times every time I update.

So, motivation to get the wireless card on the laptop working! And after an hour or two fiddling, a bit of head scratching, a trip to an internet cafe and a forehead slapping later, it’s all done, and I’m posting this from the laptop, sitting in the Courtenay Central Entertainment Complex! More details in a separate post when I get around to it - tomorrow, maybe.