Wireless network service on the road

I've been looking for a while for a WiFi service with a decent number of access points and a pricing model that I could live with. When I first started looking the only game in town was BT Openzone but it suffered from the drawback that you either had to sign up for a monthly contract with included airtime or buy vouchers for a certain amount of connect time. The vouchers sounded OK until I found out that if you buy, say, a one hour voucher, you have to use it all in one day. You can't use 10 minutes one day, half an hour another day and the rest in quick two minute bursts to check email.

I then came across Swisscom Eurospot, who were handing out free 2 hour access cards at an event I went to recently. Unfortunately these free cards and the ones you pay for suffer from the problem about not being able to stop the clock once you start using your time allocation. I spoke to their Regional Sales Manager at the event and he explained that they were aiming at the overnight hotel or full-day conference market, contrasting the price/performance of their offering with the alternative of using a dial-up connection through the hotel switchboard where you have to leave your first-born child as a deposit for the phone bill charges you'll incur.

Well, today I had another look at the Openzone offering, to discover that they now do a Pay As You Go offering, which I think will be just what I want at the moment. You have to register with them before you can use the service but there is no sign-up fee or standing charge, just 20p per minute for all the net access you want. You can pay by credit card or direct debit. They do have plans which let you sign up for some time included at a slightly discounted rate then back to 20p per minute if you exceed this.

As well as the pricing model being better, the coverage has improved and they have set up cross-network roaming with a couple of other service providers, such that there are around 40 access points in both Edinburgh and Glasgow now. These are a mixture of hotels, bars, etc and their "Streetzones", where they have put an access point into what was a public telephone box on the street. Not great if the weather is bad but might be handy for a quick blast online if you need to pick up something important.

Anyway - I've registered and hope to try it out soon. If it works it will probably be justification enough to get a Compact Flash WiFi card for my handheld (Dell Axim X5, which Dell seem to have decided to start selling again after having only the X3 for a while). I'll report back once I have tried it !