Public WiFi on the decline perhaps
PlusNet have pulled their WiFi product, citing lack of interest.
Though I'd say it was more down to the fact they only partnered with BT OpenZone, and only in the UK.
This limits access to a very tiny amount of hotspots.
The problem I have found with public WiFi is the fragmentation of services, the high costs for low use and sheer unavailability of hotspots. Not to mention getting online when you do find one is often a nightmare, especially on a WiFi equipped phone.
PlusNet had a nice idea in having a proper PAYG scheme where you paid something like 7p per minute instead of like the majority who want a monthly fee or a one-off £7 or similar for an hour to a day (which is a right rip-off if you just want to check your emails), and you'd have to sign up to half a dozen to even remotely have a chance of getting enough coverage.
Now we have (finally) mobile operators placing caps on their data rates I find it's cheaper to just use GPRS/3G data.
Have been trying out Devicescape which is an aggregation service of hotspot providers where you put in all your accounts and it supposedly makes logging in easy. Not really had much success with it though.