Nokia wifizone

I finally got the chance to take one of the buses that Nokia has equipped with a free wifi network. I failed to join the network on the first day, but could surf the net on the second day.

First try
Using my eee pc, I was able to detect more than 10 wifi networks coming from the HDB blocks around me, but just could not find the Nokia WifiZone despite refreshing several times. I carried on with my ebook reading.

Second try (10 min later)
I finally saw the Nokia WifiZone but failed to get a DHCP lease. Hence, not connected.

Third try (10 min later)
Reconnected and joined, but could not go anywhere, not even google. If you can't even reach google or delicious, or connect to msn or google talk, you are pretty much screwed right? The address given to me starts with 192.168. and the DNS server is 202.65.247.152. I couldn't reach it. Was it too far away?

Fourth try (4 days later on the same bus)
I could log on to google talk, msn messenger, replace my twitter badge on my blog with the latest version that works, twittered via instant message, played Ikarium for a while and didn't have enough time to post this while on the go.

Fifth try (anoter 4 days later)
Good enough that I can post this on the bus. How useful is this free service really? Is it like oh since I'm in luck and on a wifi bus, I might as well try to surf the net and waste some time on this long bus journey? So yeah it works but don't depend on this if you're a net junkie since free wifi services are notoriously unreliable. In the worst
case, it could just be a waste of time and battery charge trying to connect! I'm better off writing or reading something on my eee. It's as bad as wireless@sg in that you can't do anything about it if it is not working, short of changing another bus or going to another fast food outlet. Changing to another bus hardly seem feasible. Download speeds are comparable with wireless@sg, and it's as free.

One difference from wireless@sg: I don't need to sign up for a free account with my IC and don't have to log in with my password everytime I'm using the free wifi (having to log in again is an inconvenience when moving around and changing base stations). I just need to click 2 buttons to indicate that I accept the terms and conditions (which nobody reads).