Connectile dysfunction

On a trip to DC this week I experienced the other side of our networked world when engine trouble forced me to re-route. First, the airline set up a special telephone number (apprarently in real-time) to handle the customers on our non-functioning airplane but the rush from all and sundry to connect seemed to tax the system (you have never seen so many people dig out phones simultaneously to dial the same number with the same problem). This resulted in a person I spoke to advising me to “hang up and speak to an agent at the gate!” Once that little problem was solved I decided to purchase wifi access for the duration of my stay in the airport. Easier said than done. T-Mobile proved so difficult to connect with that I gave up. At first it seemed mildly irritating that I had to go through so many form fields and so many variants of a possible password to spend my money but it soon became far worse when ‘for security reasons’ the screen wiped out my just-entered credit card details before I could complete registration process. Not once, twice. The design assumes that user name creation is a simple matter of typing six letters, and that delays caused by failing to use a unique name don’t occur. Deviate from this and your time is up and you have to start again. Cue to quit T-Mobile and try Wayport. I succeeded with them (far easier process of account creation) but my account was good only until I left that airport. Once I landed in Houston (a mere 25 minutes later) I not only had no further coverage but Bush International Airport only offers coverage through Sprint. What a litany: telephone hotlines unable to deliver the service for which they they are created; three different wireless companies, no easy joining or extended coverage; 20 minutes of ‘registration’ to have 30 minutes of email. And THIS is the networked society?