Coras - Hold the Sesame Networks

Driving into Toronto at 5:30a is a very low stress thing to do. I've got a little hang out in Aurora called Cora's that I enjoy for an early morning breakfast and a little catching up on email/Blogs, etc.

I found out that Cora's has a location in downtown Toronto (Wellington/Peter) which opens up at 6a. Perfect.

This morning I zip into Cora's and am greeted by the friendly morning crew. I'm pleasantly surprised at a sign proclaiming free Wi-Fi. Excellent. 

Order up some healthy breakfast and crank up the ol Tablet PC.

The service is provided by Sesame Networks, a Canadian company founded by Tom Hope. 

Ah, would life be as easy as point -n- click.

First up, the network isn't there. I ask the manager if the network is running. Should be, he says. Sorry, the network is not showing up here where it should be, I say. He goes for the phone and places a call to the tech support guys. Tech support appears to tell the manager what tech support tells everybody round one: Power down, wait 90 seconds, and turn it back on. The manager comes over to my table, phone in hand and utters those immortal words: Try it now.

Presto, the network shows up, connection, life is good.  Well, sortta.

Like most hosted/supported access points, you fire up a browser and get a log in screen. Normal and simple. 

Well, not simple enough for the fine folks at Sesame Networks, hows this for overhead. After getting to the sign in screen, you type in your cell phone number and then click the request a password button. It sends you, via SMS, a password. 

There is some tiny fine print at the bottom of the web page saying some phone providers might charge you for the SMS message.  Then, there is the issue of only getting one hour of service before having to re-authenticate.

Shezzz..

Okay. Let's deconstruct this one. 

First, we can assume some of the parameters are Cora's request. The service is only available Mon - Fri likely due to the line ups for tables on the weekends. And the one hour is probably Cora's item as well, again, probably for table turns.

Leaving those business issues aside, let's turn our attention to pissing off customers.  Shocking but true, here in North America there are a ton of people, business and otherwise, who don't know what an SMS message is.  So, telling people to check their cell phone when they want to get on-line is, well, it isn't smooth shall we say.  Some business people actually have the phones turned off.  Some people don't like typing their cell phone numbers into web pages for no reasonable reason.

But the topper is the free Internet access might cost the customer 50 cents. Yeah, big deal, 50 phreaking cents. Like most things, its not about the money. the issue is seeing a charge you don't know about on your phone bill, logging your cell phone into a system that now has the possibility to SMS you with other offers, notices, etc.  There is, according to the manager of Cora's, no way for him to just give you a password that's Sesame Networks gig/job.

The tech in me is just embarrassed that Sesame Networks, with something like 50+ years of combined network/wireless/telco experience could put this type of a sign up system in place.

I'm sure there is a laundry list of reasons why this was done but the free access in Maple Leaf lounges can handle name/password.  The hot spots run by T-Mobile don't seem to invite users to combine multiple devices in order to check email. In short, this just makes it harder for customers.

If on the way off chance Cora's actually thought this goofy sign on process up, the years of experience at Sesame Networks should have prevented this self-inflicted wound.

And about Cora's. Hmm.. I'm not sure if the Toronto store is a Cora's corporate store but the Aurora location is a franchise and the owner dropped a hot spot in on his own. The log in process? Turn your computer on and go. Nothing, zero, zip, nadda. Wide open. 

My partner Stu thinks public hot spots are a passing fancy with no real long term business model.  He thinks once 3G networks are in place and devices are just always connected to the network, your Laptop, PDA, etc, will just be on and the notion of needing a hot spot will just go away.

After this experience, I'm off to hunt down an Sierra Wireless Card and get signed up to a data plan.

Lesson for you: Keep it simple.