Hi,

Was wondering if there is a free WIFI hot-spot finder app available?
I've searched the whole forum and found nothing also not
a real solution on my connectivity problems with free WIFI.

The thing is, I'm travelling to Italy in September and my hotel has a free WIFI hot-spot available, normally I wouldn't care less but due to my recent trip to the States I am a bit worried that my dear beloved N900 can't connect to free wifi again.
In the States I tried with every free WIFI service I could find but only at Orlando airport I was able to connect to a free access point, and I stayed for 2 weeks so believe me I've tried a lot...

If such a app isn't available, and nobody is able to port one,
could somebody please give me a work around for connecting to hot-spots then?
(home WIFI is working fine).

Thanks in advance for your help !!!

If you just click on the Status menu(?) > Internet connections, it will list all hot spots in range.
It may take a minute or so for the list to update though, so trying to find points by wardriving doesn't really work.

Tried that too, was sitting outside a well known hotspot in Orlando and waited for half an hour but no connection could be made (was a strong signal also...)

Was only able to connect at the hotel where you where redirected to a website and you had to fill in a code provided by the hotel....

Since my Italian hotel has a WIFI hot spot I fear it is not gonna work again....

will try over here in the Netherlands with a Mc Donalds and see if it will connect there.....

More and more hotspots are using n-type routers, which none of the Maemo devices can use. Even if there is a b/g/n router, you will have to know where the router is and place yourself near it to get the b/g signal. The n signal carries for a longer distance. When you try to connect, there is no way of distinguishing an n signal from the others.

Sometimes your device will say that it is connected, but the browser will be unable to bring up any websites. This seems to happen with b/g/n routers when you are too far away.

This is very frustrating. N-type wifi has been around for long enough that Nokia could have included it in the specs for the N900. Maybe that would have annoyed the mobile network operators who sell most of Nokia's products.

I've found that same type of problem in -all- wireless devices I've used, especially when some distance from the source.
I suspect its due to low transmit power(i.e. I can receive, but don't have enough power for the router to see me), as well as the N-type problem.

That all being said, its a hardware, -not- a software problem, I believe - Unless we can somehow boost/overpower the Wifi module(apparently possible with -some- modules - especially router ones - but only with custom firmware).