I was at Olive & Ivy recently and discovered that while they offer free wireless internet, they also block popular social networking web sites like LinkedIn and YouTube. What’s up with that? Why provide internet at all if you’re going to block it?
hb I wonder the same thing, its more like FREE restricted Wi-Fi. LOL The airport does something similar. 0 Reply January 28, 2008
Khamis Because of their limited bandwidth I’m sure. But if they really knew what they were doing they could just slow down the connection to each person when a lot of people were connected, so thus it wouldn’t be blocked but people wouldn’t make the connection unbearably slow for the other patrons. 0 Reply January 28, 2008
Michael T Maybe Linkedin and YouTube users have a worse habit of squatting (on free internet)? I’m thinking Khamis is on the right track too. Or maybe it’s a cultural thing – Olive and Ivy doesn’t want 30-second video clip types hanging out there. They prefer a more sophisticated reading versus watching crowd? 0 Reply January 28, 2008
Austin I am totally with Chris on this. Its stupid and it makes no sense. God forbid that for a small period of time you actually USE the provided web. LinkedIn doesn’t even have anything on it that takes up bandwidth. And unless they are using an unnecessarily expensive line, I am sure that there are no bandwidth limitations on their account. Heck, any old router will split up the traffic that is being used. Your average YouTube video is only like 4 megs anyways. 0 Reply January 28, 2008
Jaime Aguila Whereas I agree that blocking some sites is a dumb idea, it is their right as a privately owned enterprise. And as a consumer I will more than likely frequent places that do not have such limitations on my coffee drinking experience. So everyone wins in the end-the market will determine whether or not this is a good move on their part. Jaime http://www.cyberhacienda.blogspot.com/ 0 Reply January 31, 2008
O I’d never expect LinkedIn to be blocked from anywhere. How much time to people actually spend business networking? MySpace, on the other hand, you just have to go to the public library and see every other computer logged into that site. Full of bandwidth-hogging customized profiles, popups, music, videos, yada yada yada. I notice a big network slowdown at coffeehouses when other users are MySpacing on their laptops, but in the end, I agree with Jaime. The market can speak for itself. 0 Reply January 31, 2008
Pierce/Bear No joke about MySpace being a bandwidth hog; I have definitely noticed just that even when my Cox cable Internet is running @ full speed 🙁 0 Reply February 2, 2008
