Coffee shops across the US are finding that offering free wireless internet access to customers is leaving a bitter taste.

"There are times when 90 per cent of the people in here are surfing the internet," says Jen Strongin, co-owner of the Victrola Coffee & Art cafe in Seattle. "It has really changed the atmosphere."

Students of coffee-house culture call it the "zombie effect" people staring silently into their computers, oblivious to those around them.

Zombies are not only anti-social but also bad business. A single laptop user can take up a whole table. It is not unusual for web surfers to eke out a single cup of coffee for hours.

"We have people in here for six, even eight, hours without buying a thing," says Ms Strongin.

Her solution is simple: from now on the wi-fi network will be turned off at weekends, the Victrola's busiest days.

The Canvas Cafe in San Francisco has taken the same step, restricting wi-fi access to weekdays.

The upmarket Samovar Tea Lounge, also in San Francisco, turns its service off at 5pm each day to prevent "zombies" from crowding out early-evening diners.

An alternative is to charge customers for wi-fi. But small cafes recognise that free internet access is an important weapon in the battle against Starbucks, which offers pay-as-you-go wi-fi in 3,500 of its coffee houses.

Activists at the Boston Wireless Advocacy Group hope to head off a wi-fi backlash by encouraging coffee house owners to display wi-fi etiquette posters. Top tips include: "Make purchases and tip"; "If it's busy don't overstay your welcome"; and "Share a table."

Besides, some customers are more attached than others to ubiquitous internet access. At Buck's Diner in Woodside, California, a favourite haunt of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the free wi-fi service is on all day, every day. The high-tech clientele expect nothing less.

In nearby Portola Valley, the Konditorei cafe - immortalised five years ago by tech industry entrepreneur Randy Komisar in his book The Monk and The Riddle - follows the same zombie-friendly policy.

Armando, manger of the Konditorei café in Portola Valley, advises: "Wi-fi etiquette? Keep using it until we kick you out."

Copyright 2005 Financial Times

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