wifi access at Istanbul Airport

I’m putting this up less for the benefit of my blog readers than for any travelers who happen to Google the topic contained in the title of this post.

Wifi access at Istanbul Airport… there’s one free network, but it’s one of those things where they want to send you the password by SMS. They always did that in India too, and it drove me crazy because I happen not to like traveling with a phone (just because Vodafone Egypt has royally screwed me with roaming charges on trips a couple of times, just as they royally screwed the Egyptian public as a whole by co-operating with the Mubarak regime’s telecom blackout, without a peep of protest).

If you travel without a cell phone, as I prefer to do, your best option is the restaurant called The Greenport, inside the passport control area. You have to order something to eat or drink, but if you do so the waitstaff is then perfectly nice about giving you a card with their network name and password, for free access.