when I moved in to my last apartment the folks at SBC were being jerks about installing DSL and told me it would be over a month before I could get it.

That is when I noticed a coffee shop that was down stairs that offered free wireless from their ZSpot connection. I checked the connection signal with the laptop and it showed a strong signal to me... so then I went downstairs and bought a coffee. I struck up a conversation with the owner of the shop and I explained my situation with the DSL connection and that I could get a signal from my apartment. I asked him if it was ok if I piggybacked off of him for a while, at least until I got my DSL, so I could keep up to date on emails, news, etc. He readily agreed because we were neighbors and he /wanted/ people to use his connection. The only thing he asked was to keep my surfing legit, which I had no problem with.

So my moral is, why don't you just ask the people at SB? Or if you can locate one of the other open connections you might want to ask them.

As for SBC I kicked them to the curb in favor of Comcast who was out there in a day to hook me up


/my current company operates open WiFi all over the place, about 150 locations around the country at the moment and we invite everyone that is in signal reach to use it...