Wi-Fi hotspots bridge the Wi-Fi connectivity gap between wireless networks in homes and businesses. People can access e-mail and other online services between home and work or while traveling. This allows them to keep up with customers, associates, and family members.
Wi-Fi hotspots are found in many public places where people might want to pop open their laptop and browse the Internet. Following are some typical places where you might find a Wi-Fi hotspot:
- Cafés, restaurants, and bars
- Hotels, conventions centre
- Bookstores and libraries
- Office building reception areas
- Airports, Bus Terminal, Train Stations
- Clubs and organizations
Cafés and restaurants provide wireless Internet access for customers while they are enjoying their food and beverages. Along with other businesses and organizations, cafés and restaurants will likely benefit with more foot traffic to their location when they provide this convenient Internet service to customers and visitors.
A majority of travelers these days choose only hotels that provide broadband Internet access within the rooms. This lets people keep in touch with their office while they are out of town. Some hotels provide a wired Internet connection usually an Ethernet or data port. Ethernet provides broadband Internet access similar to Wi-Fi, but Ethernet requires a cable to connect the user laptop to the network. This restricts the user to a single location in the room usually a desk. In addition, most hotels provide a data port on the telephone for dialup modem users to plug into. This also requires a restrictive cable connection, and the performance is slow and unusable for some websites and e-mail attachment downloads.
Even though wired Internet connections are widely available, most people prefer Wi-Fi Internet access. This enables guests to move about the hotel and still be connected to the Internet. For example, a business traveler can use the Internet from anywhere within the room, such as from the desk or while relaxing on the bed. In addition, this person can go down to the bar or lobby and still have Internet access. A Wi-Fi network in a hotel also becomes useful when one or more people with laptops are staying in the same room, because wired connections allow only one person at a time to use the Internet.
Students, business people, and others typically use Wi-Fi hotspots at local bookstores and libraries while working on homework or work-related tasks. Bookstores typically did not have Internet access before they began offering Wi-Fi access. For years, libraries have had computer workstations connected to the Internet for public use.
Yet offering Wi-Fi Internet access helps eliminate some costs, enables more people to use the Internet at once, and lets users move about the building while using Internet applications.
Corporations in the past did not have Internet access available for visitors throughout their office buildings because of the difficulties in allocating a wired connection. In most cases, an unused wired Ethernet port is not available or is in a physical location where it is not practical for the visitor to access it. An open port, for example, could be located on the wall within the conference room. Regularly scheduled meetings in the conference room would likely get in the way of the visitor using the room to use the network connection. Visitors such as salespeople, customers, and consultants, though, can definitely benefit from Wi-Fi Internet access while inside the facility, even if the wireless network is made available only from specific places, such as the company lobby, and kept separate from the corporate network.
Wi-Fi Internet access within airports enables travelers to send and receive e-mail and conduct other necessary tasks while traveling. This is useful during long waiting between flights and unscheduled delays or cancellations. Many airports today still have not installed wireless hotspots. Given that airports can be extremely large, this could be an expensive task for the airport authorities. However, even installing a small hotspot within specific restaurants, airline clubs, or concourses of the airport would be useful to travelers.
Wi-Fi access is also available while onboard aircraft during some international airline flights, but limited to some airlines or selected routes. When Internet access on airplanes becomes widely accepted, many people will benefit, especially during longer flights. Business travelers will certainly be more productive if they can correspond via e-mail and use Internet-based applications while they are restricted to an airplane seat.
