We're wired up all over - with or without the coffee

By PETER SINCLAIR

No matter where you live, you are not too far away from a cup of cyber-coffee and a welcoming keyboard.

If you doubt it, visit CyberCafes.com, a site containing directions to (at last count) 4186 internet cafes in 148 countries.

The Cybercafe Search Engine may make you feel like opening one yourself, and offers the business plan used to start the Cafe CyberCaptive in San Mateo, California, at $64 a look.

In New Zealand you will find a guide at www.piperpat.com/nz/cafes.html. But the trouble is that cybercafes tend to spring into existence and wink out again, blowing like so many light-bulbs. They leave even the Yellow Pages , with its improved search-engine, a bit behind.

So I got on the phone myself to bring you a quick traveller's guide.

There is just one cybercafe in Hamilton, if you can believe it - Inta@ctiv at 445 Grey St, Hamilton East, where Brendan Holmes offers net access seven days a week at $6 a half-hour, $10 an hour. Prepaid cards are available, but no coffee until mid-year - you would think he would buy a jar of instant and go for it ...

Whangarei does a bit better, with three cafes. KloseNet in John St has eight terminals and a speedy wireless connection ($2 for 10 minutes, $5 for half an hour, $8 the first hour). The Cyber Centre has three terminals that are always flat out, perhaps because she offers free help to newbies ($3 per quarter-hour). And then there is Cable Action in the Whangarei Town Basin, where backpackers and yachties log on seven days a week from 9 am to 5 pm for $7.50 an hour.

Tauranga boasts three as well: there's a Backpackers at the Mount, open between 9 am and 8 pm seven days at $2.50 per quarter-hour; Cybersurf's eight terminals in Piccadilly Arcade are available from 9 am to 6 pm Monday to Friday and 10 am to 4 pm at weekends for 20c a minute or $9.60 an hour; and Gateway Cyber Connection in the Goddards Shopping Centre, where a super-fast Jetstream connection will hurl you through cyberspace for $11 an hour.

In Rotorua, Nomad's sounds fun - it's a full-on restaurant (specialty: vegetarian chilli) which also runs four terminals at $2 for the first 15 minutes, increasing in five-minute increments to $8 an hour; or there's CyberWorld in the Tower Building for only $7 (no chilli).

And there's no problem logging on in Hastings. Go and see Trevor or Brad at Internet World from 8.30 am to 6.30 pm weekdays, 10 am to 4 pm weekends, for a hit which will set you back $2 for 10 minutes. In Napier, Cyber's - will at first sock you $8.50, but then scales back to about $5 an hour.

At this stage, if you are holidaying in most smaller towns, such as Warkworth, Matamata or Coromandel ... well, I hoped you packed a laptop.

But the way the world is going, in a year or two it will be hard to find the smallest nook or cranny which hasn't been wired up. Pity, in a way - we may never again be able to get away from it all.

Links


Cybercafe.com

Cybercafe Search Engine

NZ cybercafe list

Yellow Pages

KloseNet

Cable Action

Cybersurf

Cybers