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Free Skype WiFi hits Ireland and the UK through Wicoms, steps up the quality of public hotspots
Let's face it: many free WiFi hotspots are tacked on as bullet point items to get customers into a shop or hotel, without much concern for quality high enough that it keeps visitors coming back. Wicoms is hoping that a strategy to offer free Skype WiFi in Ireland and the UK will reverse that neglect. Instead of leaving stores to go through carrier partnerships or devise their own solutions, the partnership has stores pick up a £49 Wicoms router and commit to either a £10 ($16) monthly rate or prepaid brackets of £49 ($79) for six months and £95 ($153) for a year. The aim isn't just to provide a more consistent level of performance -- the Skype deal also provides a ready-made sign-in process, whether or not visitors have Skype accounts, as well as someone to turn to for help. While temptations exist to go with earlier alternatives, Skype and Wicoms are giving away the router during October to help sweeten the pot, even for those outlets that drop the Skype WiFi solution later on. Let's hope the hotspots work well enough on the public-facing side; we could all use a few more shelters from low data caps and oversaturated access points.
Intel teams up with DeviceScape for automatic public WiFi, will hook up your Ultrabook in the background
We all know the coffee shop WiFi routine: crack open the laptop, visit a splash page, and dutifully wait until you're logged in before you get to Twitter. Through a new deal between Intel and DeviceScape, you won't even have to think about it. Intel's Smart Connect tool will soon automatically sign in your Ultrabook to a curated list of quality, open WiFi hotspots, even if the PC is fast asleep. This last trick might need Windows 8's Connected Standby mode to live up to Intel's expectations, but the dream is to have your email and social feeds updated and waiting before that laptop or tablet screen has even blinked into life. Intel is leaving some gaps in the story, such as whether or not gadget owners will pay a premium for the fast access. We'd guess that Intel is counting on higher computer (and more importantly, processor) sales to make up the difference.
