The one thing that Fremantle’s cappuccino strip really needed was good quality wireless internet access.

Now there is. And it is free.

Barking Owl (my company) and Fremantle Technology have got together to create a really usable free WiFi service covering a good part of the cafe strip on South Terrace roughly from Gino’s Cafe to the Capri Restaurant, including Marconi’s, the Dome, Kulcha, etc. Coverage is best at tables outside but is quite usable indoors on the south/west side of the strip.

The service has a series of limits (traffic, bandwidth shaping, some blocked ports) to prevent big downloading and spamming.

Not enough to frustrate or annoy an email or web user, though, who will enjoy ADSL-like performance while sipping coffee of having a meal. As the service is in test at the moment, things may change, but basically it is there to be tested and enjoyed by the laptop and PDA carrying public in Fremantle.

We’ve invested some time and dollars to get things started, and we hope to raise sponsorship to extend and improve the service here in Fremantle.

Please email me with questions, queries or usage reports, and I’ll post more here about the service later.

Oh yes, and the next blogger meetup might have to be in Fremantle!

(And that’s why I’ve been quiet on the blogging front for a bit…. :-)