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This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/travel/0,3800011481,39159436,00.htm

Ignorance rife among London's wi-fi pubs
Pubs - good at pulling pints, rubbish at pulling in mobile workers...

By Will Sturgeon

Published: Friday 09 June 2006

One of the biggest problems to overcome in getting London unplugged and online with wireless internet access will be getting businesses to realise they are actually able to offer it to their customers.

A silicon.com investigation has unveiled widespread ignorance among the staff of London pubs that are offering wi-fi. Although we found the service is often up and running on their premises the majority of pubs contacted by silicon.com said they offered no such service.

In one instance, while compiling our guide to London's wi-fi pubs, we were rudely told that they had no such thing and to get off the phone and stop wasting time. At others our question either wasn't understood or was shrugged off with disinterest. At the Lord Moon of the Mall, part of the Wetherspoon's group, our question was met with a chuckling suggestion that the barman had rarely heard such a stupid question in all his years of pulling pints.

The internet in a pub, whatever next?

Impressively, most Wetherspoon's pubs in London offer wi-fi on their premises, so it seems even more remiss that staff employed by the group didn't know this fact.

Now wireless internet service provider The Cloud, which supplies 1,000 pubs including many of those in London contacted by silicon.com, is looking to address this problem with an education initiative.

Katie Hollier, head of marketing at The Cloud, told silicon.com the company will kick off its awareness campaign at the beginning of July and will be mailing out information packs to 1,000 pubs encouraging them to get customers online. Hollier said part of the problem is due to the fact the hotspot is installed in the ITbox games machines which many pubs have and the unit's manufacturer, Inspired Broadcast Networks, hasn't seen internet access as a marketing priority.

Hollier told silicon.com: "Wireless internet use in pubs is fairly sporadic but we see them as an excellent target looking forward to the next few years."

And it's not just about having a beer with your wi-fi, Hollier said pubs should be looking to erode the market share of the nation's coffee shop boom.

She said: "Pubs need to realise they can generate more revenues by appealing to the coffee and muffin brigade. They need to tell people they can come in, get their laptops out and have a business meeting in the pub."