Since I added wireless networking to my home and office, I haven't missed tripping over the Ethernet cables snaking from the wall to my PCs. In fact, I've forgotten everything I used to know about Ethernet networking, namely that you need an Ethernet cable to connect to an Ethernet network. Hence, when I recently checked into a Hilton Garden Inn, which provides free high-speed Internet access in its rooms, I found I had neglected to throw the needed cabling in my notebook bag.

After I found my room and unpacked my bags, I fired up my notebook to get online, expecting to find dangling cables at the desk or little packets of blue wiring at the minibar. Alas, I found neither. So I toted the notebook to the lobby in hopes that there might be a wireless hot spot there. Glory be! There was. (Upon checkout, I learned that the front desk will loan you a cable for a $10 deposit, should you want to avoid doing all of your computing in the lobby.)

It was absurdly easy to hop online in Borders' espresso bar, but my connection was going at less than half the speed of the connection at Starbucks or the Hilton.

Compared to the process with most Wi-Fi hot spots I have used, logging on in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn was simplicity itself. In fact, I got online so quickly and easily that I decided to find all the public hot spots I could on my trip to the greater Philadelphia area. Here is a journal of my informal bandwidth and ease-of-access tests at a handful of local hot spots. They're organized in descending order of bandwidth, at least, as far as my unscientific three-hit test on CNET's Bandwidth Meter revealed.

Disclaimer: Mileage may vary. (At other times of the day at the same venues, mine have, too.) Unlike the peaks and valleys of a hot spot's bandwidth, the ease of logging on to each service should be the same no matter which branch of these chains you frequent.

Starbucks
Bandwidth: 1,297.7Kbps
Bonuses: Industrial-grade caffeinated beverages, cool tunes
As you'd expect from a hypercaffeinated environment, Starbucks' T-Mobile HotSpot was zippy. It made me a little uneasy to log on there as a new customer. Actually, I almost didn't. The wireless network icon in my Windows notebook's system tray popped up a cartoon speech bubble saying it had discovered a new network. The bubble also warned me that the network was insecure, which means that technically, it's unwise to enter passwords, credit card numbers, or personal info because they're easy to intercept. This is something that all public access hot spots have in common. And it means that if you sign up for a new account service on the spot, you're entering a credit card number into the ether. If you plan ahead--something some of us aren't able to do before our morning venti--you can sign up from a wired connection at home by going to T-Mobile's Web site and entering your credit card info there.

The first thing you see when you open your Web browser over a T-Mobile hot spot isn't your home page. It's T-Mobile's, asking you to log in or subscribe. I eventually mustered the courage to do so but only after scoping out the other coffee-swillers for signs of wireless eavesdropping and exploring the area to see how far the wireless signal traveled. I was still slightly worried about concealed devices intercepting wireless traffic, but I pressed forward in the name of science and entered my credit card info and bought a $9.95 day pass, which I subsequently used at other, less speedy, T-Mobile hot spots.

Hilton Garden Inn lobby
Bandwidth: 1,039.2Kbps
Bonuses: In-room wired networks with free Internet printing to the business center, $10-a-day Web browsing on in-room televisions, coffeemaker, free fruit and/or cookies at the front desk
The second-fastest public hot-spot connection I found was also the easiest to sign onto. With the Hilton's proprietary hot spot, there were no user agreements to click through, no sign-on process--nothing. Just me, my home page, and e-mail aplenty. In fact, it was so speedy, it was here that I chose to download T-Mobile's connection software to make it easier to hop onto its hot spots without having to enter my login information.

Borders
Bandwidth: 462.6Kbps
Bonuses: Books, magazines, and Peruvian Fair Trade coffee
Using the T-Mobile login software, it was absurdly easy to hop online in Borders' espresso bar. The connection at this T-Mobile hot spot seemed to drag a little, which was borne out by a test at CNET's Bandwidth Meter. In fact, it was going at less than half the speed of the connection at Starbucks or the Hilton. It's a good thing the books in the store looked more interesting than anything the Web had to offer that day.

Panera Bread
Bandwidth: 312.7Kbps
Bonuses: Really tasty breads and soups
Panera's hot spot (courtesy of Rhode Island-based ICOA) was a little tougher to locate in-store than Starbucks'. Perhaps the private-booth dining experience and long, thin architecture of the Springfield, Pennsylvania, store wasn't conducive to setting up a wireless network, but kudos to Panera for trying--and for offering the service free of charge. You have to blast through a page in which you agree not to spam, spoof, relay, or spy on the hard drives of other Panera customers before you can surf or check your e-mail. It wasn't fast or easy to find a table with a strong connection, but hey, you don't get something for nothing very often these days. And the company even offers toll-free technical support.

Kinko's
Bandwidth: 134.4Kbps
Bonuses: Photocopying, Fed-Ex drop-off, stationery, and printing
This T-Mobile hot spot surprised me. For an all-business kind of a place, Kinko's was staggeringly slow. Perhaps all those photocopiers were sending out negative vibes. Perhaps I caught the store on a bad connection day. Or perhaps it was just time to get back to the hotel.

I appreciated the convenience of a Wi-Fi hot spot as much as the next guy with a laptop bag slung around his shoulder, but no matter how good a wireless connection you find, it can't beat a wired Ethernet connection for speed. Next time, around, I'll pack a cable.

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