Austin Becoming Wi-Fi Hot Spot

Omega1045 writes "The Austin Chronicle is running an interesting article on how Austin is fast becoming the Wi-Fi Capital of the Free (as in beer) Wireless World. With the industry standardization board Wi-Fi Alliance moving to Austin earlier this year, and groups like Austin Free-Net helping local businesses, the article quotes Austin has having more hotspots 'than anywhere else on the planet'. While this article does quite a bit of bragging about Austin, it also does a great job of highlighting how businesses and local non-profits can work together to promote and profit from free Wi-Fi Internet access. This provides an excellent model for other cities to follow using tools like Less Network."

Comments

its true.

[rebelcool]

a friend and i were driving among the streets of austin (not just downtown or near UT, but in and around other places) and it is possible to simply jump from hotspot to hotspot while waiting for the light at an intersection or while driving around.

They're everywhere. Virtually every decent pub, restaurant and coffee shop here has free wireless.

Re:"wireless"?

[eggboard]

This is a neat part of the design of newer restaurants and coffeeshops: they have to plan for more juice!

A coffeeshop that opened last July in Seattle near my office had put in several outlets before they opened, and they have free Wi-Fi. About two weeks later, overwhelmed with laptops -- and doing great business -- they installed a whole strip of outlets and changed their table layout for more two-person tables. The place sometimes has 8 to 10 people working in it, all of them buying coffee and contributing to a nice air of comradeliness.

Re:free = profit?

[chia_monkey]

It's not as baffling as it sounds. Setting up a WiFi hotspot doesn't cost that much these days. A company that provides free wireless can obviously have an advantage over similar companies that don't have free WiFi when catering to patrons that are looking for WiFi. Just as some travelers may want to stay at a hotel that has a free pool as opposed to a hotel without one, a hotel (or coffee shop, or...) can draw more people simply because they have free WiFi. So for minimal cost, you can fill that room in your hotel or have more people stopping at your restaurant. Profit!