Internet café

An Internet café, also known as a cybercafé, is a café (or a convenience store or a fully dedicated Internet access business) that provides the use of computers with high bandwidth Internet access on the payment of a fee. Usage is generally charged by the minute or part of hour. An Internet café will generally also offer refreshments or other services such as phone repair. Internet cafés are often hosted within a shop or other establishment. They are located worldwide, and many people use them when traveling to access webmail and instant messaging services to keep in touch with family and friends. Apart from travelers, in many developing countries Internet cafés are the primary form of Internet access for citizens as a shared-access model is more affordable than personal ownership of equipment and/or software. Internet cafés are a natural evolution of the traditional café. As Internet access rose many pubs, bars, and cafés added terminals and eventually Wi-Fi hotspots, eroding the distinction between the Internet café and normal cafés. In recent years, traditional internet cafés have experienced a significant decline in developed countries due to the widespread availability of personal internet access devices.[1] Conversely, in regions like Southeast Asia, internet cafés have evolved into esports cafés, serving as community hubs for gamers and training grounds for professional players.

Pre-internet online cafés

The early history of public access to online networking sites is largely unwritten and undocumented. Many experiments can lay claim to being precursors to internet cafés.

In March 1988, the 'Electronic Café' was opened near Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea by Ahn Sang-soo (Professor of Hongik University) and Gum Nu-ri (Professor of Kookmin University). Two 16-bit computers connected to online service networks through telephone lines. Offline meetings were held in the café, which served as a place that connected online and offline activities.[2]

In July 1991, the SFnet Coffeehouse Network was opened in San Francisco, United States by Wayne Gregori. Gregori installed coin-operated computer terminals in coffeehouses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The terminals dialed into a 32 line Bulletin Board System that offered an array of electronic services including FIDOnet mail and, in 1992, Internet mail.

Internet cafés

The concept of a café with full Internet access (and the name Cybercafé) was invented in early 1994 by Ivan Pope. Commissioned to develop an Internet event for an arts weekend at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, and inspired by the SFnet terminal based cafés, Pope wrote a proposal outlining the concept of a café with Internet access. For the event Seduced and Abandoned: The Body in the Virtual World. Over the weekend of March 12–13 in the theatre at the ICA, Pope ran a Cybercafé which consisted of multiple Apple Mac computers on café style tables with menus of available services.[3]

In June 1994, The Binary Café, Canada's first Internet café, opened in Toronto, Ontario, according to Security and Software for Cybercafés.[4]

Inspired partly by the ICA event and associated with an Internet provider startup, EasyNet, in the same building, a commercial[5] Internet café called Cyberia opened on September 1, 1994, in London, England.[6]

Characteristics

While most Internet cafés are private businesses many have been set up to help bridge the 'digital divide', providing computer access and training to those without home access. There are also Internet kiosks, Internet access points in public places like public libraries, airport halls, sometimes just for brief use while standing.

Many hotels, resorts, and cruise ships offer Internet access for the convenience of their guests; this can take various forms, such as in-room wireless access, or a web browser that uses the in-room television set for its display (usually in this case the hotel provides a wireless keyboard on the assumption that the guest will use it from the bed), or computer(s) that guests can use, either in the lobby or in a business center. As with telephone service, in the US most mid-price hotels offer Internet access from a computer in the lobby to registered guests without charging an additional fee, while fancier hotels are more likely to charge for the use of a computer in their "business center."

For those traveling by road in North America, many truck stops have Internet kiosks, for which a typical charge is around 20 cents per minute.[21]

Internet cafés come in a wide range of styles, reflecting their location, main clientele, and sometimes, the social agenda of the proprietors. In the early days they were important in projecting the image of the Internet as a 'cool' phenomenon.

A variation on the Internet café business model is the LAN gaming center

Legal issues

In 2003 the EasyInternetcafé chain was found liable for copyright infringement occurring when customers used its CD-burning service to burn illegally downloaded music to their own CDs.[22]

In 2005 Italy began requiring entities such as Internet cafés to collect photocopies of the passports of Internet, phone, or fax-using customers as a result of anti-terrorism legislation passed in July of that year.[23]

By 2010, a variation of the Internet café known as a "sweepstakes parlor" had become widespread in certain regions of the United States. These facilities offered entries in a contest to customers who purchase Internet usage. Sweepstakes parlors faced scrutiny by local governments, who argued that sweepstakes parlors are a form of illegal gambling. A large number of these locations faced raids by officials, while a number of states enacted laws to ban them.[24][25][26]

By country

In popular culture

Films such as The Beach and The Proposal feature an Internet café as a primary setting for significant plot development.[46]

In Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel, the main character enters an internet café where she looks up clues to her past.[47]

See also

• Capsule hotel
• Kiosk software
• Public computer
• Public internet booths
• Software bundled discounts

Further reading

External links

• World of Internet Cafes