23rd January 2007

The Las Vegas Monorail Begins Offering Free Wi-Fi !

posted in Las Vegas |

Las Vegas Monorail Offers Free Wi-Fi

Aside from the Monobabes, it appears that the Las Vegas Monorail is adding yet another weapon in it’s Public Relations arsenal.

Free Wireless Internet Access.

Courtesy of Sprint.

These signs just started popping up in Monorail stations yesterday. I was at this very station the day before, and there was no sign. I took the above picture at the Flamingo Station.

The signs are not in all stations yet, but I asked an attendant, and she said that they planned to offer it throughout the system.

This should actually be a very positive development.

The endless search for wi-fi hotspots in Las Vegas is well known, and the free ones are hit and miss at best.

If the Monorail can pull off the concept that every station is also a hotspot, then people in need of Internet access will begin looking for Monorail stations.

It doesn’t mean that they will actually get on a train, but getting them to a station is a damn good start.

So when you need free wireless Internet access in Las Vegas … now you know where to go.

It goes without saying that the next question on everyone’s mind is: “Will they allow me to surf porn from the stations, or will they have filters in place?”

Well, I plan to test this with my laptop on my next trip to the rail. In the interest of public knowledge, of course.

The things I do for you people …


There are currently 3 responses to “The Las Vegas Monorail Begins Offering Free Wi-Fi !”

  1. 1

    On January 24th, 2007, kim said:

    and we thank you. the lack of free wi-fi here was a huge shocker. 3 bucks for 2 hours at mcdonalds isn’t too bad, i guess, but it requires also the purchase of some mcdonalds consumable, which usually leads to consuming said consumable.
    so, about the porn surfing?

  2. 2

    On January 29th, 2007, VegasRex said:

    I tried it out with my Pocket PC, and there doesn’t seem to be any porn-filtering.

    You are right that we desperately need free wi-fi in this town.

    We are way behind cities like Seattle and San Francisco, and we have a lot more laptop-toting tourists than they do.

    The entire Vegas Strip should be a massive, free, hotspot, IMHO.

    Considering the density of the daily population of the strip (one of the most densely populated places on earth), and our position as a service-oriented city … the fact that it hasn’t happened yet is a source of constant complaints.

  3. 3

    On February 5th, 2007, VegasRex said:

    I finally tested the connection.

    The signs are now in ALL stations, and I got wi-fi in every station in the system, but the cloud generally did not extend very far outside of the stations. Maybe 100 yards.

    There was no filtering. I surfed Penthouse, etc with no problems. Nothing like getting a boner on the monorail.

    Average speed was 950-990 Kbps, which is?pretty good.

    It might actually be faster because the machine I tested it with is a bit antiquated with an older wi-fi chip, but ~1Mbps should be more than sufficient for most users.

    It’s completely free and open.? Just pull up the SSID, and there is no login page or anything.? You are just on net and surfing in a matter of seconds.