Auckland is like any major western city, with skyscrapers adorning
its skyline, well planned Central Business District, Starbucks,
payphones, and other amenities you associate with some of the major
European and American cities. However, in this city, home to about
75% of New Zealand’s human population of 4m (The 40m sheep have been
excluded from this analysis given their lack of appreciation for
802.1b internet protocol and other modern technologies. Additionally,
no sheep were harmed in the making of this posting), the basic
service that is so commonplace across the world, the simple little
tool known as broadband internet, is a) woefully inadequate, and b)
ridiculously expensive.
I am writing this post from the transit area in Auckland Airport’s
International terminal. My three and a half hour flight to Melbourne,
due to depart at an ungodly 6:50am, has an equally ungoldly delay of
about five hours, at last reckoning (its likely longer now). After
having read every single article in the weekend edition of the FT
(purchased at a ridiculous price of twelve kiwi dollars), and The
Economist, I finally decided to while the remaining three hours by
logging onto the internet, inspired partially by the large signs
proclaiming this to be a “hotspot”. After about fifteen minutes of
hitting refresh and walking around the terminal with my laptop in
hand and looking ridiculous, I was finally able to catch a feeble
signal, just enough to find out that an hour’s access cost a mere ten
kiwi dollars! With boredom getting the better of my financial acumen,
I decided to splurge on the one hour access, only to be foiled right
after putting in my payment details by a crafty network that did a
disappearing act, leaving me wire-less and with nothing to show for
my ten dollars.
Getting any help with my predicament was an exercise in futility. The
five people across the entire terminal who vaguely resembled
employees of the airport, feigned ignorance, despite my using words
such as Internet, Wi-Fi, and Help. They suggested I use the phone to
call a help desk, except there was no number for the help desk.
Used to dealing with the wireless networks of more advanced nations
such as India, I was a little more than peeved about the state of
events here. I continued to play with the network, catching a
fleeting glimpse of it here and there, and once even managed to get
to the front page of the internet provider. Yet, getting beyond that,
or getting help, appeared to be beyond the capacity of this modern
airport’s network.
In most parts of Europe, Wi-Fi is widely available, and generally
free. In the U.S. and Canada, its available almost everywhere, and
for a small fee, can be accessed at almost all airports. In India,
you can get good quality Wi-Fi in every airport, thought getting a
prepaid card to use can be a slight bother. Istanbul airport has free
wi-fi. In Auckland, you pay in order to get no Wi-Fi.
After this vent, I have another three hours to kill (the flight got
delayed by another hour while typing this), so I am going to head
over and try and find something else to keep me busy- maybe they have
dial-up somewhere.
