Peter Cochrane's Blog: No more dial-up?

Written whilst flying from Crete to London and dispatched via Wi-Fi at Clacket Lane Services on the M25.

For the last seven days I have been working from and travelling around a small corner of Crete. Before I left the UK I had wrongly assumed that high-speed access to the net was likely to be a problem. How wrong can you be!

Wi-Fi and LAN connectivity have suddenly become so pervasive that it looks as though I can abandon another couple of connection leads to lighten my load.

Not only was my apartment wired with a high-speed LAN, there has been ample evidence of connection possibilities in the form of hotels, cafés and bars offering service at the top of their menu. What is more, the prices have been reasonable - free, free with your coffee/snack/meal, and $1.50 on if you want to play games on an installed console.

You cannot help but be impressed by the hospitality of the Greeks, and their industry in the creation of food of all kinds, not to mention the dramatic landscapes and weather across Crete itself. But as a technologist it seemed to me that every village and small community had connectivity to offer, IT was in common use and every business was online. As one resident manager put it: "The internet is a fact of life, all businesses have to be online, how could you not be?"

The small library of pictures below, taken by yours truly, gives some testament to this view and the pervasiveness of the internet across those parts of Crete I travelled.

Apart from the relief of being able to work trouble-free this past week, I also realised that I had reached another epoch in my roving online life. I can't remember when and where I last connected to the net using my mobile or a fixed-line phone. Wi-Fi and LAN connectivity have suddenly become so pervasive that it looks as though I can abandon another couple of connection leads to lighten my load.

This is an amazing rate of rollout in that 12 - and certainly 18 - months ago the need to dial-in to an ISP was a relatively common necessity for my business on the move. Suddenly, it seems in the distant past.

Top of the menu

All part of the deal - like water, gas and electricity

Dedicated to the cause