WiFi locations in Glasgow

[allyharp]

Firebird - Argyle Street (West)

I know where that place is but have never been inside. What is it, a bar or a coffee shop?

[onyirtodd]

Firebird - Argyle Street (West)

I know where that place is but have never been inside. What is it, a bar or a coffee shop?

A bit of both with some OK grub thrown in. Belongs to Billy Baby Grand.

[bilco8]

Wisdom Coffee, Charing Cross, in Elmbank Gardens, which also contains Charing Cross Station entrance.
Nice coffee, sandwiches, pastries etc.
Tried all that but not the free WIFI

[allyharp]

Beanscene now do 1 hour free wifi with every drinks purchase.

[tobester]

so you buy 5 drinks, get pissed be online talking shite for 5hrs

[Mori]

GCC Item 10

WIRELESS GLASGOW

Purpose of Report

This report outlines the result of the tendering process for Wireless Glasgow, the initiative to
extend Wireless coverage in the City on the basis of a neutrally-hosted network.

Recommendation

Elected Members are requested to instruct the Chief Executive to:
(i) Conclude the work to prepare a programme for deployment of a neutrally hosted
network for the City Centre and West End with Arqiva.
(ii) Commence work on a business plan to extend this network into the East End in view
of the link with the Clyde Gateway Regeneration and Commonwealth Games.
Elected Members are also requested to note that this supports the Council’s new Economic
Strategy currently under development.

1. BACKGROUND
1.1 In June 2006 the City Council approved the Wireless Glasgow Strategy and Plan for
Action which set out the City’s intention to encourage any initiative that will enable the
Wireless Glasgow vision.
1.2 In October 2006 the City Council authorised the use of the Council’s street furniture for
leasing to site equipment to deliver GSM (Global Satelllite Mobile) and other
telecommunications services.
1.3 In November 2006, the City Council approved the issue of a tender to invite proposals
for deployment of wireless across the City and in particular for the Commonwealth
Games areas. It was made clear that the Council’s role would be facilitation of the
process rather than direct investment.
2. TENDER PROCESS
2.1 The tender was issued in December 2006 and 51 organisations registered an interest
with 11 formally replying to the PQQ. Many of those showing initial interest were small
organisations unlikely to have the capacity to deliver on the wide scale required in
Glasgow.
2.2 4 companies were selected to go forward into a Competitive Dialogue process
• Arqiva
• Alfred McAlpine
• BT
• Cityspace
2.3 After the first round of Dialogue, Alfred McAlpine and Cityspace dropped out.
2.4 Following several rounds of Dialogue, it became clear that the participants were unsure
that there was commercial demand for a network and that they would be unwilling to
invest in citywide infrastructure without a firm promise of uptake.
2.5 However the Dialogue did bring to the Council’s attention that a number of wireless
services are already in place within the city and that there was a strong case to be
made for extension into the West End. It was also felt that the tender should also
explore whether there would be interest in providing wireless services in the East End.
2.6 Responses to this tender were received from Arqiva and BT. The results may be
summarised as follows:
• Over the time of the dialogue, a noticeable change in the market place was
observed. A number of cities in Europe and the USA, having signed up to “free” city
WIFI implementations with major service providers are now experiencing problems.
Service providers are backing off as the network costs are not being met by paying
users. In fact, service providers are now requesting that the city authorities commit
to being an anchor tenant, paying to use the network to support city services.

• The principle of the Council’s procurement was no cost, no risk to the Council. The
procurement process has tested the market and it is clear that the market does not
agree that future benefits justify speculative investment in the infrastructure. The
market would only be willing to proceed if the public sector is prepared to guarantee
substantial use of the network as an “anchor” tenant, or if there is a clear revenue
income to support the investment.
• None of the major providers involved in the process, including those who dropped
out at earlier stages have intelligence that savings can be made on the scale
required. To date, projects in other cities have not identified or quantified such
savings.
• 2 bidders stayed in the process throughout. One bidder felt unable to provide
pricing information and for this reason their bid was non-compliant. Arqiva’s tender
response was broadly in line with the Council’s requirements. Wireless services
would be made available in the City Centre and the West End. Extension to the
East End was not considered commercially viable at the point of the tender return,
although it is recognised that has changed with the Commonwealth Games, and the
development of the Clyde Gateway Regeneration and Urban Regeneration
Company
2.7 It is therefore proposed that contract award be considered for deployment of a neutrally
hosted network for the City Centre and West End following more detailed development
of a programme that will be undertaken in partnership with Arqiva. This will allow the
Council and Arqiva to fully understand what is being committed to in terms of resources
and how the network is being funded. If the resultant programme does not meet the
requirements of both parties then they can walk away without liability.
3. NEXT STEPS
3.1 Development of a programme for deployment of a neutrally hosted network for the City
Centre and West End. This will be undertaken in partnership with Arqiva.
3.2 As part of the programme development, Service Areas will be asked to identify those
services which have a potential to be delivered through wireless technologies. Armslength
delivery vehicles and partners such as Health and SPT will also be asked to
contribute.
4. RECOMMENDATIONS
4.1 Elected Members are asked to instruct the Chief Executive to:
(i) Conclude the work to prepare a programme for deployment of a neutrally hosted
network for the City Centre and West End with Arqiva.
(ii) Commence work on a business plan to extend this network into the East End in
view of the link with the Clyde Gateway Regeneration and the Commonwealth
Games.
4.2 Elected Members are also requested to note that this supports the Council’s new
Economic Strategy currently under development.

[bilco8]

Free Wifi on some buses now!

[Doorstop]

Shortly before Christmas my Brother happened to be last minute grocery shopping for the Christmas Day Gluttony Extravaganza with the Christmas turkey paramount on the priority list.

He popped along to his local butchers only to find the queue snaking around the shop interior, out the main entrance and continuing to several feet feet deep along the pavement outside.

He duly took his place and resigned himself to a tedious wait as the turkey had been pre booked and pre paid and, with my brother, every penny is a prisoner so finding a shop with a shorter line simply wasn't an option.

The depletion of the meat-mongeries line of custom was interminably slow and ground along at a pace commensurate with the whole community shop "Hello! How are you? Place my order, have the generic smalltalk, have the special Christmas smalltalk, pay your monies, say your goodbyes, "NEXT!!" pace.

By the time twenty minutes had passed my Brother had barely made it from the street to the front entrance.

Now, my Brother (like myself) isn't known for his patience so, when noticing a wireless router attached to a small shelf in the corner close to the ceiling, he thought to himself "I wonder if their network is password protected?", he's like that .. nosey I mean, "I could pass the time" he thought " in this queue doing a bit of unauthorised surfing on my Nokia n95.". So he digs into his deep, deep pockets and, in-between furtive glances and surreptitious keyclicks begins his search for available wifi networks and, lo and behold, after a brief pause sure enough a local unprotected access point makes itself known.

"Dancin' Bear!!" my brother cries inwardly and proceeds to attempt to hijack some bandwidth to download whatever net content he deems suitable to be viewing in the very public queue inside a very public family butchers shop.

However things did not go as initially planned .. his Nokia, while being able to see the available network and seeing it as unprotected, was repeatedly denied access so my Brother, being the stalwart and stubborn individual he is (he shares the same genetic pool as me), continued in his efforts to smash "Fortress Galloways" firewall defences.

After a few minutes of 'hacking' away however his attention was drawn to the fact that the queue he was standing in was no longer moving. He looked up from his cyber criminal attempts to find all the 'behind counter' staff scratching their heads and fiddling with their electronic tills/weighing scales respectively with befuddled confusion as they had all locked up and refused to reboot.

They all refused to reboot because they were all linked to the wireless LAN my brother had totally fucked up trying to hack into.

Cue the disappearance of my Brothers Nokia back into the murky depths of his deep, deep pockets and the hurried appearance of of half a dozen old fashioned weighing scales and a biscuit tin full of the petty cash coupled with a three quarters of an hours wait for Brother of mine picking up his Yuletide Gobbler.

Ye couldnae make it up!

[crazygray23]

on the silverburn info pods theres 3 or 4 wi-fi hotspots shown but none seem to be installed yet and yo sushi has a secured network you can even see the router perching on the wall of their kitchen

[catriona]

Shortly before Christmas my Brother happened to be last minute grocery shopping for the Christmas Day Gluttony Extravaganza with the Christmas turkey paramount on the priority list.

He popped along to his local butchers only to find the queue snaking around the shop interior, out the main entrance and continuing to several feet feet deep along the pavement outside.

He duly took his place and resigned himself to a tedious wait as the turkey had been pre booked and pre paid and, with my brother, every penny is a prisoner so finding a shop with a shorter line simply wasn't an option.

The depletion of the meat-mongeries line of custom was interminably slow and ground along at a pace commensurate with the whole community shop "Hello! How are you? Place my order, have the generic smalltalk, have the special Christmas smalltalk, pay your monies, say your goodbyes, "NEXT!!" pace.

By the time twenty minutes had passed my Brother had barely made it from the street to the front entrance.

Now, my Brother (like myself) isn't known for his patience so, when noticing a wireless router attached to a small shelf in the corner close to the ceiling, he thought to himself "I wonder if their network is password protected?", he's like that .. nosey I mean, "I could pass the time" he thought " in this queue doing a bit of unauthorised surfing on my Nokia n95.". So he digs into his deep, deep pockets and, in-between furtive glances and surreptitious keyclicks begins his search for available wifi networks and, lo and behold, after a brief pause sure enough a local unprotected access point makes itself known.

"Dancin' Bear!!" my brother cries inwardly and proceeds to attempt to hijack some bandwidth to download whatever net content he deems suitable to be viewing in the very public queue inside a very public family butchers shop.

However things did not go as initially planned .. his Nokia, while being able to see the available network and seeing it as unprotected, was repeatedly denied access so my Brother, being the stalwart and stubborn individual he is (he shares the same genetic pool as me), continued in his efforts to smash "Fortress Galloways" firewall defences.

After a few minutes of 'hacking' away however his attention was drawn to the fact that the queue he was standing in was no longer moving. He looked up from his cyber criminal attempts to find all the 'behind counter' staff scratching their heads and fiddling with their electronic tills/weighing scales respectively with befuddled confusion as they had all locked up and refused to reboot.

They all refused to reboot because they were all linked to the wireless LAN my brother had totally fucked up trying to hack into.

Cue the disappearance of my Brothers Nokia back into the murky depths of his deep, deep pockets and the hurried appearance of of half a dozen old fashioned weighing scales and a biscuit tin full of the petty cash coupled with a three quarters of an hours wait for Brother of mine picking up his Yuletide Gobbler.

Ye couldnae make it up!

Doorstop, No matter where your future endeavors lead you, if all else fails, you should consider free-lance writing!

[Doorstop]

Shucks!

No compliments please .. I'm shy.

[Sharon]

Shucks!

No compliments please .. I'm shy.

i totaly agree, your posts are an absolute delight to read, even when its your somewhat risky admission that you landed a golf club on someones skull.

Just dont let the compliments temper them!!

[Ronnie]

Hi Doorstop, your fab story has been hijacked by The Herald Diary today:

Bird brain
A discussion on the Hidden Glasgow website about free Wi-Fi, where you can connect your computer to the internet, brought forth a story about a chap queueing for his pre-paid Christmas turkey at the butcher's where the queue snaked out of the shop and several feet along the pavement.

As the bird was pre-paid he had no choice but to wait in the interminably slow queue as the butchers chatted away to regulars about their Christmas plans.

So to pass the time he took out his swanky Nokia N95 smartphone and began searching for available WiFi. Sadly, he ended up trying to hack into the butcher's computer system which ended with the butcher's tills shutting down and the queue taking twice as long as the bamboozled butchers were reduced to using old-fashioned weighing scales and a biscuit tin full of petty cash.

I think yours is better written!

[Doorstop]

Thanks very much guys .. high praise indeed.

I shall try not to become starstruck with the sudden infamy of it all.

[Doorstop]

I have to say my brother still isn't talking to me over the broadsheet publication of his nefarious activities.

Come on mate .. it's been over a week now .. get over it.