Since I wrote about my change of heart and subsequent purchase of an iPod touch, I have signed up to the Wi-Fi hotspot service provided in the U.K. by The Cloud.

At £3.99 a month, with no contract to tie me in, I thought I would road test the service. Cambridge currently has 38 Cloud hotspots listed for the city centre, so the prospect of being able to connect looked favorable. 

Using the service is supposed to be as simple as possible. By registering the MAC address of your iPod touch when signing up for the “Cloud Unlimited (Music)” package, you should be able to connect to the service when in range of a hotspot with no further need to sign in—“no tricky usernames or passwords to remember,” states The Cloud. The only ‘work’ I had to do to be able to surf the net was to check the list of available Wi-Fi networks detected by the touch.

I have managed to use the touch at U.K. airports where The Cloud provides hotspots, and I discovered a hotspot in the Cambridge-area mall near the O2 store—the same mall where the new Apple store is going to be located. There is a hotspot in the pub next door to Borders which is actually accessible from inside Borders, handy for checking on who-wrote-what. All fine and dandy.

That is, until last week. Trying to access the ‘net from inside Borders brought up a log in screen. Unusual I thought; maybe the pub had changed its Wi-Fi settings. I went through the login process to be told my username or password was incorrect. Several attempts to log in failed. I was able to submit a report via the login page and I decided to try one of the other hotspots I knew worked previously.

Same error, again.

After getting an email response from the support department, I was assured that they are working on resolving the problem, and that I would be able to use the service. Three days passed. So, I sent more emails to report the problems. And received more emails claiming the problem was resolved.

Any prospect of my remaining on this service has been ‘clouded’ by the recent connection problems: my iPod touch has just become an iPod again. For the occasional times I have used it, before these recent issues, Wi-Fi has been worth the 13p or so a day it cost. Perhaps this is just some rough weather that The Cloud is going through. I’ll see if I am offered some form of compensation for these days of lost usage.

Has any other U.K. reader has been having these issues? I’d like to hear from you in the comments. And before anyone suggests it, I’m still not going buying an iPhone.

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Actually I have yet again at the weekend joined a cloud network on my iphone and had to re-register again by putting my mobile number in.

The cloud says i only need to do this once ever but this is the 3rd time now.

Got access after tho so whilst inconvenient its better than nothing.

By Matt on 03.17.08 at 09:37 AM

I have an iPhone - but I get a similar problem with cloud.  It states that you only have to enter your details once - well, I enter them everytime I want to use the cloud network.  It’s a pain.

By Curtis on 03.17.08 at 11:07 AM

I run my iPhone on vodafone so no free cloud for me but I did pay for it as I thought it would be useful. Having done so I experienced multiple issues as listed above and it drove me nuts. Trying to contact their support drove me more nuts and I gave up and cancelled. I actually know someone who works there and he did offer me a 6 month freebie but the very next time I tried to connect it asked me for my password yet again so I haven’t tried again.

Its a great concept and they have some interesting things in the pipeline but it doesn’t “just work” at the moment.

By Bobajobbob on 03.17.08 at 04:32 PM

Endless problems, hopeless support. Try sending an email.... and wait .... and wait… and...eventually(3 months) they send me ‘we’re glad your problem has been solved...’!!!
Useless

By giorgio on 03.18.08 at 04:30 AM

I bought one of their 24 hour packages, and got no use out of it - next time I tried to connect to use the rest of it up they had changed the rules and it had apparently all expired although I was not logged in! “Problem solved” their helpdesk said.

The Kings Cross node is a good strong wireless signal, but no internet, email or iTunes access for months.

By John V. Keogh on 03.18.08 at 05:14 AM

Well, here I am standing next to the Graphic Novels section in Borders - no need to login to access the ‘net.
I hope that the problems with the login have been sorted.

Time will tell…

By Bob Levens on 03.18.08 at 05:15 AM

Apart from that, their Aldgate, London coverage where I work is intermittent, but when it works it’s great for a few minutes.

By John V. Keogh on 03.18.08 at 05:16 AM

All I ever get is “Safari cannot find the server” message. It worked once in Bury St Edmunds near the O2 shop. Useless.

By drevo_uk on 03.24.08 at 11:59 AM

Although it seems I have to log in every time I use a cloud network, from there on it works perfectly.

By James Thomas on 04.13.08 at 08:13 AM

Last couple of times I have accessed The Cloud it seems to be back to the original system of connecting with no need to log in.

Thanks for the comments though - at least I know I am not alone.

By Bob Levens on 04.13.08 at 08:45 AM

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