Mobile / Cell Phone Thoughts & Reviews

A few months back I was flying out of Long Beach Airport (LGB) in California and decided to test the internet speed when I was there.  I like many others have been known to spend a great deal of time waiting for flights that are sometimes shorter then the time we wait in the airport.  At bigger airports there are airline club rooms that aren’t all that bad to spend some time in, but Long Beach airport isn’t one of them.  It’s as big as some of those more luxurious club rooms but being small is part of it’s advantage.  I can litteraly go from the curb to the furthest gate in under 3 minutes and that’s not even breaking a sweat.

I really like flying in and out of LGB and like most of my readers I tap into the wifi in the airport during the wait to board.  My last two times waiting to fly out of LGB were very different.  One I had reasonable internet at 2.09mbps down and 1.64mbps up.  I want to congratulate the airport on doing this right.  It’s not as fast as I’d like to see but it will sure do when checking email and using Google Docs.

On the other hand my most recent visit to the airport was very different.  I couldn’t find an access point to use to get on the net.  I tried every single AP and none worked.  I checked Boingo which usually gets me on at most airports and no luck there.  I ended up having to use my trusty Nokia phone with JoikuSpot (a program that turns your phone into a wifi hotspot utilizing your networks 3G data) running on it to get on the web.

I’m not sure what happened to Long Beach Airports wifi but I was disappointed to find I couldn’t use it.  Oh well, there’s always next time.