Reiterating liedra's point. Could I run a wifi network across 50 apartments that had good service? Sure, easily. Are they likely to? Nope. Even with good access points, they're probably running the traffic through a smaller pipe than would be good. Worst case, they're running it all through a single residential line. Definitely some security risks if you're sitting on the same LAN as others, but it is possible they set it up as a properly segmented network.

So I guess my point is -- 'free' probably means 'crap', but sometimes not.