Pages

Monday, March 2, 2009

SM Marikina's Free Wifi!

I've been bugging some friends at SM to have free wifi since 2007 and they've finally seen the light! Hooray!

In my locality there's only one coffee shop left that offers free wifi. The others that tried eventually stopped having it, so I just also stopped going to them (ha!). Sweetie though has told me time and again that there's free wifi in several malls in Marikina/Cainta. I get envious when he tells me that he's connected while he's having merienda at a shop. Oh well.

Anyway, Az invited bloggers to test the free wifi at SM Marikina last weekend. I did not want to lug around my laptop so I just used my phone (Nokia E71). And here are my thoughts:


Photo by JayDJ (during my first visit to SM Marikina) 

1. I'm impatient and demanding when it comes to connecting to wifi. I'd rather work at home than connect to the internet outside if the connection is slooow. I managed to connect to the wifi ONCE and it took awhile to connect because I had to go through the splash pages. Zzzzz. 

2. When I finally got to the website of my choice (Plurk!). I managed to get around for a bit and then the connection just disappeared. I wasn't able to connect anymore the rest of the day. 

3. Sweetie's testing was much better because he used a laptop and we managed to stream 1 Youtube video and download an anti-virus update. 

4. I wonder how they intend to get direct feedback from the testers. They just asked us to email. Maybe next time they can come up with a survey so they can get proper feedback. As Migs said, the hosts just disappeared after the raffle. 

5. So do you think the free wifi at SM Marikina should be taken seriously? I would suggest they experience the wifi at Biksa Coffee so they'll get the idea of what real wifi is. (Peace!).

Well, I do think it's still a good start and well there were a lot of people testing that day. They just probably need to increase capacity so that it's going to be really usable. 

Congratulations to Sha for winning the laptop!

7 comments:

  1. a mallwide connection is no joke. the bigger the mall, the more complicated it gets to wifize (my own term) the entire building. :) But it's a good start and hopefully we'll find ourselves in a free wifi hotspot wherever SM mall we may be.

    As for Biksa, yes, they're promoting the place even for business meetings as their connection is stable and fast. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's great news and a good start.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess the will get feedback by reading your blogs...
    and I guess that's why they call it stress testing -- to find out what needs to be fixed...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I guess they will get feedback by reading your blogs...
    and I guess that is why they call it stress testing...you don't know what to fix if you don't know what's broke...
    B-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Aileen! I just stumbled on your blog, while researching...I read through and I couldn't stop reading, it is so addicting! haha. Great job on this blog! You are such a good and engaging writer! God bless! -- Marj aka Joray/La Salle

    ReplyDelete
  6. Biksa Coffee turns ONE! Come... Celebrate with us from May 1 to May 7!

    ReplyDelete
  7. actually SM City Cebu is launching today its mall-wide free Wifi. http://www.smcitycebuwifi.com/

    ReplyDelete