Amtrak and the Continuing Rise of Wi-Fi Entitlement

Way back in our October 2009 issue, an executive with Smart City, a company that provides Internet service to convention centers, told Senior Editor Barbara Palmer: "We're very close to the point where we show up to a building and [when] there's no access [the reaction is,] 'Well, what do you mean there's no Internet?' Everybody depends on it."

I think this attitude of Wi-Fi entitlement has only grown since then. Or, okay, my own attitude of Wi-Fi entitlement has grown -- at the meetings and conferences I attend, and especially on the train, which I take from Washington, D.C., to New York City every month to close each issue of Convene. Amtrak rolled out free Wi-Fi on its premium Acela service last year, but I ride the company's standard Northeast Corridor line, which doesn't have Wi-Fi. I've never been able to understand it, given the numbers of business travelers who use the Northeast Corridor service every day, and during my last few trips I've gotten pretty close to angry about it. I get a lot of work done during the three-and-a-half hour trip, but could operate even more efficiently if I had Internet access, free or otherwise.

Happy 41st Birthday, Internet!

Forty-one years ago today, the first message was transmitted over ARPANET, the computer network that would grow into the Internet, when UCLA graduate student Charles Kline sent the world "login" -- one letter at a time -- to Stanford Research Institute programmer Bill Duvall. The L and the O were sent and received with no problems. In a video about this momentous exchange, Kline remembers what happened next: "Then I typed the G, and [Duvall] said, 'Wait a minute, my system crashed.'"

Which is perfect, no? The modern experience of e-mail -- instantaneous communication, hair-pulling frustration -- sprang fully formed from ARPANET on Oct. 29, 1969. And nothing would ever be the same -- including meetings and conventions, which, let's face it, have gained a whole lot more than they lost from the deal. Including this blog. Thanks, Internet!