That means: no surfing the web, no catching up of the latest TV-series on SurfTheChannel or Hulu, no listening to Pandora, Grooveshark, Finetunes, last.fm or any shoutcast web radio station (in essence, being without your cave).. While an iPhone or a Nokia N800 would give some relief to this issue, it only works as long as one stays within the coverage of a 3G network. In our case, the summer cottage is just far enough from the nearest city that we’re left with a spotty 2G network (not even EDGE!) and a painfully slow data connection. The cottage doesn’t have a telephone wiring either, so ADSL is out of the question.

For this summer, I sweared that I’d find a way to get decent internet connection, and luckily 2009 is the year when Digita is rolling out their Flash-OFDM based network (on the old NMT-450 band) nationwide, giving me the access to a decent 1M/s down, 500KB/s up wireless connection!

I got my subscription and hardware from Airnet, taking advantage of their summer sales. The package comes with a TeleWell router that can handle ADSL, 3G, Flash-OFDM and WLAN connections on top of the normal ethernet and USB connections to a computer. Not suprisingly, Qualcomm’s PCMCIA card was the weapon of choice for the Flash-OFDM connection (F-OFDM was developed by Flarion which is now owned by Qualcomm), and although the card comes with its own tiny antenna, the Airnet package comes with a proper 7db antenna (with a magnetic base for car installations!). The cool thing is that I could set the router to use the 3G connection, and in case I go outside the network coverage, it can automatically switch to a backup connection like F-OFDM (and I guess in theory it would work from ADSL->3G->F-OFDM if needed).

Other things still missing include: a decent TV (for the inevitable House, HIMYM, TBBT, etc. fix, served by Tvix or Popcorn Hour), a sound system for TV and music (probably a NAD all-in-one paired with some decent speakers) and a second hand Playstation 2 / Xbox for those perfect never-ending weekends with good friends.

I realize that by providing certain services only at the airline lounges they become more attractive and can create customer loyalty. But. There are way too many airlines and multiple airline alliances to ensure that even if you’re a loyal Finnair / One World customer you’ll get access to the local lounges to recharge your PC/phone and relax a bit before the grueling 10+ hour flight to wherever.

Like in my case: I was sold a JAL flight (part of One World Alliance), which is operated and code-shared with Finnair and yet I was persona non grata at Helsinki-Vantaa, Haneda and Narita airports just because I’m a Finnair One World Ruby member instead of Japan Airline one. My savior turned out to be Diners Club that gave me access (for a fee) to the Narita lounge.

As with many things, it seems that throwing money at a problem can sometimes fix it. As a more expensive but reliable solution, I am now seriously considering Priority Pass which still seems a bit overkill when all I want is a seat, working electrical outlet and cheap/free web access.