Mark's Notebook


	I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking. - Albert Einstein

WiFi Neighborhoods

San Jose Mercury News

Monday 13 December 2004, 2:38 pm
Keywords: Computer Topics , News Articles

By Sam Diaz

Going online from "hotspots" at the airport, Starbucks or McDonald's was a major breakthrough in Internet technology. Now, the next generation of wireless Web surfing is happening in "hot zones," which are popping up in unlikely places.

Like the Los Gatos Opera House.

Marie Tallman, vice president of marketing at the opera house, admits that she isn't much of a techie and never imagined being a key player behind free wireless Internet service in downtown Los Gatos. She just wanted high-speed Internet in the building's meeting rooms so she could market the facility as a place for business gatherings.

Teaming with the nearby Tollhouse Hotel and another Los Gatos business -- a wireless networking company called Firetide -- the Opera House and the hotel now offer free high-speed WiFi Internet access and the town has a two-block WiFi zone that's much larger than the WiFi hotspots found at Starbucks.

Hot zones like the one in Los Gatos are springing up around the country, paving the way for corporate campuses, multi-block residential neighborhoods and, in some cases, entire cities to be blanketed with wireless Internet connections. Those WiFi zones could someday replace the wired broadband networks that require miles of expensive and cumbersome underground cables to reach homes and businesses.

The basis for WiFi zones is a technology called wireless mesh networking, which relies on multiple access points to send and receive signals, allowing Internet connections to blanket a wider area than a hotspot covers.

Networking companies are moving toward delivering citywide WiFi. Next month, Mountain View-based MetroFi will start offering residential WiFi Internet service to every home in Santa Clara and is already building the framework to do the same in Cupertino later next year.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/10404965.htm

Mark says: My stepson Aaron is going to get married at the Los Gatos Opera House next fall. Cool. I can surf if the wedding gets boring. Ouch! Just kidding!