Mi wifi es tu wifi?
Rude Geek writes:
I recently upset a cafe owner, in retrospect with good reason, for plugging in my laptop without asking.
What is the currently (evolving) etiquette for using someone’s electricity and bandwidth? If I take out my mobile telephone and use someone’s open Wi-Fi network should I ask?
Etiquette would generally suggest that you should never use someone’s stuff without gaining permission. Never ever.
Generally you’ll be looking for explicit permission either in the form of a “Wifi Available” sign or by asking the staff. However — and here’s where I probably part ways with Miss Manners — there’s also implicit permission.
Implicit permission to use power or network connections include:
- Lots of other people around you doing so without getting in any apparent trouble
- Being in a hotel, convention centre, or similar venue
- Being in an airport or other major transport hub
Those are the only implicitly safe places I can think of to plug in a phone charger or use any open wifi you might find. Can anyone think of others?
Other than that, if you don’t have implicit or explicit permission, you should ask first.
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Power sockets (and vacant ethernet points), I agree with. Unless it’s explicitly given, you don’t *touch* other people’s stuff.
However, personally I think that an open WiFi point is a different ball game. If there weren’t signs up, how can you even be expected to know that it belongs to the cafe and not the guy in the apartment across the street?
Maybe I’m a little harsh on less-technically-minded people but I think that leaving an open and visible access point IS an implicit invitation to use it. If you don’t want to share it, lock it down.
I’d throw in the following:
Around here, almost no hotspot is open. No surprise either, since nowadays you have to work at it to set up a newly acquired WLAN router without configuring a password. (The vendors really deserve kudos on this one.) If there’s an open hotspot in range of café, it’s therefore an open invitation as far as I’m concerned.
So just pull out your computer and check.
In fact, if the staff is busy, I’d consider it rude to occupy them with such an inane question.
But if you intend to physically plug any sort of cable into a jack, I’d say you always ask, except at an airport. Possibly you plug in without asking in a hotel lounge, but in that case only if you’re staying at the establishment or are at a conference taking place in it or something of the like – not as a stranger who just waltzed in without having any business with them. (That should go without saying, but just to be sure.)
Hmmm, interesting. While I rarely frequent cafe’s and would be even less likely to plug my laptop into a power outlet, I have used open wifi without asking. My usual assumption is that if it’s open, you can use it. Especially if it’s labeled with the cafe name or named “public_web” or some other varient. It’s like having an unlocked bathroom – I would presume it’s there for the customer to use.
Power, on the other hand, is a bit more iffy. If the outlet is decorated (painted/wallpapered as part of the wall) and in open sight (as in, not hidden under tables and chairs), I’ll assume I can plug in for a short while (not for hours). However, if it’s well hidden or plugged up with those child-safety covers / has some other sort of cover, then no. Unless I was really desperate for power, in which case I might plug in, then check with the nearest, unavailable employee to see if it’s ok to use. Or the other way around, depending on how covered/protected it was.
Ben: yes, “public” or the name of the venue is an invitation; thanks, I missed that one!
To those who say that an open wifi point is an invitation in and of itself: I’d have more sympathy for that if it didn’t cost the owner anything. In the US, where bandwidth is generally unmetered, it might be a different matter, but in Australia (where Rude Geek and I both live) anyone who’s dumb enough to leave a network open by mistake is probably also the type who has a basic DSL account with a smallish bandwidth cap — under 5 gigs a month — and is likely to get charged outrageous amounts or have their access restricted if they go over it.
(There’s some discussion of Australian bandwidth prices and limitations on my other blog, if you’re interested.)
In a situation of ubiquitous unmetered Internet connections, I guess open wifi is like having the lights on and the curtains open in your house and someone standing in the street reading by them. In places where bandwidth is metered, it’s more like walking into someone’s house and turning the lights on for yourself.
Ahh, good point.
Over here in Germany, most people have low-bandwidth DSL connections with no transfer limit, and the faster someone’s link, the less likely they have a limit. Just don’t hog the bandwidth with massive downloads and you’re very unlikely to be any kind of nuisance.
So I feel no guilt over using open hotspots to surf or read mail without asking. Not that it comes up much, because they’re exceedingly rare these days.
If a cafe is advertising a hotspot, I figure that they’re willing to throw in the power to run my laptop. Especially if, like most in my area of Canada, I’m paying for both the coffee and the wireless service. But to plunk down and plug in without asking is generally impolite.
Well I crack wep protected wireless networks, for me anything cryptographically weak is a implicit invitation… xP
I won’t speak to using open wifi points, it doesn’t apply to me since I have an EVDO wireless card that gets me 1-2mbps with lower latency and better consistency than any open wifi point will.
As far as power goes, however… I don’t know what electricity prices are like in Australia, but on the west coast of the US, running a power-hungry laptop like a MacBook Pro with maxed out CPU and graphics card usage for 24 hours straight would never cost more than US$0.30. More like US$0.10-0.15 in a public utility district.
Given the typical power load of a laptop sitting in a restaurant (less than a 60-watt lightbulb, usually much less), however, it’d be more like US$0.08, and that’s for 24 hours. The maximum 1-2 hours I’m actually likely to be sitting there means I cost them maybe six tenths of a cent. I’m pretty sure the profit margin on my overpriced food and drink, served by a staff being paid 1/3rd my salary (if that), combined with the fact I’m more likely to return later to a place that I can get a power outlet for more overpriced food and drink, more than makes up for it.
Finally, up and down the west coast of the US, be it in airports, restaurants, or even the lobby of an office building, laptops and their power adapters are everywhere. There’s a diner a few miles from my house where the only two tables in easy reach of a power outlet are occupied pretty much 24/7 by guys with laptops. Nobody cares. Everyone knows the cost is virtually nothing, and the longer they sit there, the more food they’re going to buy anyway.
I’m in agreement with Nicholas here. I no more feel bad about using a café’s electricity than I do their napkins.
The juice is theirs, and it’s their right to refuse it, but I think it’s a fair assumption that if there are available plugs that it’s an open invitation.