Getting Connected to San Francisco - What Chance Do We Really Have When We Can't?

This week sees the start of WebMission 2009, bringing together the best in new web 2.0 companies. Artesian CEO Andrew Yates provides the inside information with the WebMission diary:

So here I am in the city of San Francisco as WebMission rolls into town. Being a Brit and stuck on UK time, predictably the human clock decided to kick in at 5am, which saw me out of bed by six and strolling the front by seven. We are staying at the Harbor Court which is situated in the CDB, or as the Americans call it ‘down town’. Approximately 750,000 residents live on a 46.6-square-mile tip of land between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean and it is not entirely reassuring to find out that the famous Old Ferry Building which I am currently staring at was built upon thousands of Douglas Fir piles roughly 41 metres in depth.



It's Saturday morning and the market traders are setting up their wares so we take a pew outside a small coffee shop to watch the day go by. Instinct tells me to open up my Netbook and explore, to see if there is a Wifi I can hop on. Again, the Brit in me is not optimistic. Imagine my surprise to find out not only does the tiny coffee shop have one which is freely accesible, but every other business in the immediate vicinity does too! BETTER STILL the SF Guest Wifi, which I assume is provided by the city, also prevails which means it doesn't matter who you are, or where you are, access to the web is free.

The San Franciscans get it! They understand that connectivity is the precursor to making the web happen. The market is a conversation, the city is a buzz with Twitter, Wifi is your birth right. Not like at home in the UK where the merest dalliance is a £7 expenditure item. Give it away for free, every city should have one. Along on the trip is the right honorable Mark Prisk a knowledgeable Conservative MP with a business background, travelling with us to insure we benefit from his experience. Rest assured ears will be bent. Vie va la WIFI revolution in our cities. Kicks for free is the only way forward otherwise we will get left behind and it turns out Prisk agrees.