Tonight millions of people welcoming the new year will use their mobile phone in order to contact loved ones and friends and to wish them a Happy New Year. The German industry association Bitkom estimates that about 290 millions of SMS messages will be sent at midnight. Even though mobile networks are constantly expanded and upgraded by the operators T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and O2 Germany, it is likely that they will not be able to handle all the traffic and to forward every SMS messages sent immediately. In some cases, it could even take two or three hours until Happy New Year wishes will arrive at their destination when the SMS messages has been sent at midnight or a few minutes later. But there are ways to avoid this.

It might take years until Berlin will get its free WiFi network throughout the city such as other cities like Austin or San Francisco. However, there are still a lot of locations with free WiFi (or WLAN) access to the web such as bars, cafes, hostels, hotels or even certain points of interest. With more and more people having a netbook or a smartphone with WiFi support and more and more people taking their mobiles on their trips to other countries, WiFi hotspots become hot again. For example, by using a free WiFi hotspot in Berlin mobile phone or netbook users from other countries save high data roaming expenses – all it might take to access the internet for free is to get a password at the counter and order one or two coffees during the online session. The Phone Guide Germany tells you at which locations in Berlin you will find free WiFi connections to the web.