Specifications

11
hotels, restaurants, airports, and other
locations offer wireless broadband
internet access either for a fee, or for
free. Now before I leave home, I check
a Web site <http://www.jwire.com>, or
its twin sister site supported by Intel,
<http://intel.jwire.com>, to determine
what wireless access is available
enroute, or at my destination. Another
source of such information is <http://
www.wi-fihotspotlist.com
http://
www.wi-fihotspotlist.com>.
Jwire.com is one of the leading
interactive directories of publicly
available wireless internet locations,
typically using one of the industry
standard 802.11 protocols.
Standardization, as well as substantial
downward compatibility, has ensured
that almost all computers equipped with
802.11 type wireless internet hardware
can effectively communicate at
broadband speeds. As I type this, Jwire
is listing almost 70,000 public access
wireless hotspots around the world. The
Intel companion site lists almost 30,000
wireless hotspots in the U.S., and about
40,000 international wireless hotspots.
According to the Intel site, the top U.S.
cities for public wireless are New York
City with over 550 public access
locations, followed by Chicago (434
public wireless locations), San
Francisco (412), and Seattle (320).
Texas is well represented in the top 10
most “unwired” cities with 309 public
hotspots in Houston, 250 in Austin, and
192 in Dallas. California is listed by
Intel as the state with the most public
access with over 5000 locations,
followed by Texas with almost 2000
hotspots, Florida with about 1800, and
New York with over 1600 public
hotspots. It should be emphasized that
these numbers are only the wireless sites
that allow public access, either for free
(sometimes with some strings attached)
or for a fee, and does not include the
millions of sites that are private wireless
networks. The listing also does not
include many of the hotel chains that
offer free wireless access to registered
guests.
Many of the free sites listed are local
restaurants, some hotels, many airport
terminals, RV parks, and other
locations. All it takes to access these
totally free and public sites is the SSID
of the wireless host and appropriate
hardware; the Jwire sites list the SSID’s
of the public sites. When the wireless
access on the notebook computer is
activated, the wireless networks within
range can be identified, and if
accessible, the SSID can be entered,
and connections established. It is
important that from a personal security
standpoint, these public connections are
not often encrypted, and can be
“sniffed” or picked up by anyone with
suitable equipment; sensitive
information, passwords, banking, and
other critical information should never
be sent on an insecure public network.
In addition to the free sites, there
are many thousands of publicly
accessible but commercial (fee based)
hotspots, often in coffee shops,
restaurants, hotels, bookstores, some
airport terminal areas, and other
locations. These hotspots either require
a subscription to a service, such as a
cellular phone company or other third
party, or a daily or hourly fee for access.
Generally, since these pay services
require some type of access code, they
are slightly more secure than the free
public sites, but are still usually
accessible to a hacker with commonly
available but illicit software. Again, it
is a good practice not to type any