Crown Center

Crown Center, 2450 Grand, Kansas City
802.11b
SSID: aircore.ccf

The Crown Center atrium is easily my favorite hotspot. Plenty of tables with enough room for your laptop and a sumptuous dinner (go ahead, splurge on a meal-that's obviously what Crown Center's management has in mind), and it's usually not difficult to find one right next to a power outlet. From the time it went live until maybe around the first of this year, the network occasionally had a problem with users successfully connecting to the access point but then not being able to get out onto the 'Net. I was a victim of this myself several times. I haven't seen it happen recently, however, so it seems the problem has been fixed. If it recurs, however, there are "tent cards" on the tables with a phone number you can call for Wi-Fi problems.

As far as signal strength goes, I haven't seen a problem anywhere in the atrium on either side of the escalator. (By the way, the access point and antenna are mounted about halfway up one of the columns to the right of the up escalator.) If you want to sit back towards the food court, however, this may be a problem, especially if your laptop isn't a hot performer as far as Wi-Fi reception is concerned. You'll also have to rely on your battery, there being no power outlets available.

One caveat: Many of the restaurants in the food court stop selling around 8 p. m., so if you've got a hankering for a submarine sandwich or a half-slab of ribs to go with your Wi-Fi, get there early enough so that this won't be a problem. No reason to rush afterwards; I've been there as late as midnight without anyone suggesting it's time to go.