Dublin airport offers Wi-Fi catch 22

THE INQ has just spent a frustrating afternoon trying to connect via Wi-Fi at Dublin airport in Eire. The 'buy online' option is bugged and none of the shops have scratch cards left.

The Wi-Fi facility is operated by Eircom on behalf of the Dublin Airport Authority. There are plenty of active wireless access points alright. It's just that connecting to them is impossible.

This INQ reporter tried every shop listed on the Eircomm Wi-Fi zone welcome page. Most hadn't heard of the cards. Others didn't have any stock and only one bar claimed it had only recently sold out.

Normally it would be possible to enter credit or debit card details online but that page just returns a server error.

Most tantalisingly, Net Stumbler showed there was reputedly a 'public WiFi' access point in the facility but our notebook couldn't get a strong enough signal to connect.

As one shopkeeper told the INQ. "Ah. Just sit down and read a book instead, why don't you?" Luckily the shops hadn't sold out of books. µ