State of Mobile Internet Access

In my travels experimenting with my phone's internet, which mainly consisted of driving around and trying it out whenever I stopped while travelling, I found more open WiFi access points than I expected. These seem to be springing up, especially at Truck Stops and Travel Plazas, where they seem to be openly usable as an attractor to get you to pick their stop for your gas and snacks instead of one of the other three huge ones across the street.

A lot of access points at places like bookstores and restaurants tend to be one of a number of separate closed networks, for which you need a subscription in order to use, but none of which in my experience have enough saturation to be worth the money. These pay-for networks really need to get together and do some sort of cost sharing or just combine before they will ever be useful.

Regardless, it appears that there are now enough open access points that between those and getting a wireless phone internet plan, you can pretty much have internet access everywhere. It's about time.