Nordaggios Review

Contributed by Tim Williston

May 9, 2005

Hotspot Vitals:
Free Spot: Yes
Network Type: G
Power: Yes
Speed Test dn/up (kbps): 1319/198
Location: 81st and Lewis
Website: www.nordaggios.com

I guess I'm on a roll today.  After spending some time surfin' Java Dave's free wifi, I headed down the road to Nordaggios at 81st and Lewis.  It is located in the Red River Mercantile shopping center near the middle of the center.  Nordaggios is a pretty good sized coffee house with a couple dozen tables and a few comfy leather sofas.

I don't come to Nordaggios much, but I hear that they have pretty good live entertainment in the evenings.  A couple of friends of mine play here quite often with their band Anna Dilemma.

The sign outside of the store clearly states that they have free wifi, but they say you must buy a drink to access it.  That's fine, I always buy something when I go into a store with free wifi.  I mosied on up to the register and asked for a Dr Pepper, but then found out that they don't have DP!!!  "We are a coffee house", they told me.  Oh well, I guess some Jones soda sounded good.

I settled into a table and plugged in my laptop.  I was quickly connected to the "Nordaggios" network just a few moments later with excellent signal and 54 Mbps.  After connecting, I did my normal speed checks, and was a little dissappointed with the speed of their connection.  In one of the tests, their upload speed was a lousy 50 Kbps.  Also, in one of my tests, the download speed was only around 700 Kbps.  Still this is not bad, but kinda slow when compared to other coffee shops around town.

Also, to my surprise, Nordaggios has a couple of Internet terminals where you can surf the web and check email without your own laptop, which is pretty cool!  I never lost connection when I was in the store, and I enjoyed a quiet and comfortable time there.