You ISP, aka, Comcast or what have you, had leased you a modem. In the last 5 or so years, these modems have Wifi capability; that is, not only can you jack into the internet via Ethernet, like the good ol’ days, these modems offer a local wifi broadcast you can use as part of subscribing to your ISP’s plan.
So, in all likelihood, and despite any lack of external antenna, you probably have a wifi capable modem, provided to you by your ISP. It would then, just be a matter of letting whatever device you wish to use to tap into it. There’ll be a Wifi name associated to your specific modem, and a temp password your ISP provides you. Depending on who your ISP is, this differs.
If you could tell us your ISP (e.g Comcast) and the model of your cable modem, we could perhaps help you further into accessing the wifi that most likely came with your modem (and you’re not taking advantage of).
You might want to try logging into the admin screen of your modem, which will usually have the URL 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.0.0, or similar, and the default userid and password are frequently provided by a sticker on the bottom of the device. If they aren’t, you can usually find this information by googling the manufacturer and model, as well as instructions for resetting the password if necessary.
Once you are logged into the admin screen, the next options/steps will be broadly similar although the screen layout will vary with the manufacturer. Look first for “Wireless” or “WLAN” and click on it; there you should be able to confirm whether the wifi capability exists, and if so, to enable it if needed. Before enabling it you will want to set up some kind of security; otherwise your wifi will be the same as that in a public place; anybody who happens to be nearby will be able to hitchhike to the internet on your modem. Typically, while still in the WLAN or wireless area of the management tool, you’ll find a submenu for security or access control that pertains just to wifi. I won’t attempt to provide detailed steps here, but there are standard security protocols which you can find online.
Finally, before exiting the admin page, look for an option to “enable remote configuration”, which will allow you to administer your modem while on a WLAN connection. (Once you have enabled wifi, you’ll find it less and less aceptable to be tied down to an Ethernet cable. On mine this is found from the top of the menu at “Advanced=>Options”, but as always YMMV depending on the hardware you have.
ETA: I wanted to test this out with a notebook today, but gave up after trying two Starbucks locations and failing to find an available seat or table at either of them. Although I could have gone to an independent cafe, I think it’s better to run the test at SBs because I’m assuming their ATT Wifi setup should perform more or less similarly at all their locations.
It would be, but more and more I come to the conclusion that typical standards of service and quality will seek the lowest level that the Walmart culture will put up with. Public wifi did use to be a lot better, I’m convinced, particularly at coffee chains like Starbucks.
Online banking bill payment systems have also taken a major nosedive. When they first became widespread, they were set up so that when you made a payment, your money would go into some kind of holding account to be processed, and that could take a few days. But you didn’t have to watch for the payment to clear; you were done with that aspect of it. That was how it worked at the one or two banks I was using over that period. By contrast, my bank now takes days to process even electronic remittances; when paper checks are necessary they are drawn directly on my account just as they would be if I mailed them myself. We’re about to go back to paying our bills by mail because it’s quicker than waiting for the bank to do it. Online bill pay saves us nothing more than writer’s cramp and postage, where it used to be a powerful tool for managing routine obligations.
More people using it is pretty obvious–when usage outstrips capacity you get slowdowns. Increasing capacity can run into limitations that are technical (what’s the state of the art for access points), logistical (how long does it take to upgrade every Starbucks in the country), financial (how much money am I willing to sink into free WiFi), and probably several others.
“More of it” may be less obvious. WiFi is unlicensed spectrum, which means that everything using WiFi is all in the same spectrum band, all talking over one another.
Imagine if you had a situation where radio only had three valid frequencies, say 88.1, 88.3 and 88.5, but all of the radio stations in the area still operated, they just all broadcast on the same frequencies at the same time. It’d be a mess to try and listen to.
Much the same here–it’s designed so that when you connect to a certain SSID, that’s all you’re listening for, but all the other stuff around you is still interfering and making your connection worse.
Back ~10 years ago, when my company had the contract for Starbucks WiFi (not us anymore), chances are you only saw our signal when you were in a store. Nowadays, every damn store in the shopping center has their own WiFi access point running, some for customer/guest access, some so salespeople can take orders or whatever on their iPads, etc.