Wi-Fi

The Problem: Using Wi-Fi Locations

Wi-Fi, or wireless internet access, is great but the location of Wi-Fi hotspots is often not advertised. Therefore, finding hotspots can sometimes be a problem, especially if you're in unfamiliar territory. Even major international airports, including Honolulu's, are hit-and-miss when it comes to finding reliable internet access.

The Solution:

Libraries, hotels, bookstores, even gas stations may offer Wi-Fi access. So, before you leave home, find one or more hotspots at your destination. There are more than 50,000 hotspots in the United States and the number is growing daily.

Intel's Mobile Technology Hotspot Finder ranks both countries and U.S. cities by numbers of hotspots. The U.S. leads with 13,529 hotspots. Second, the U.K. has 4,528. Numbers drop off rapidly: Germany-1,078; Japan-1,022; and Taiwan-628. The top ten U.S. cities, in order, are New York-781; San Francisco-463; Chicago-293; Seattle-268; Austin-238; Washington D.C.-213; Atlanta-199; Houston-198 and San Jose-190.

This site, http://intel.jiwire.com will give you a list of known hotspots within two-tenths of a mile to 100 miles of any zip code you enter. Use this to prepare for travel or start with www.WifiFreeSpot.com. WifeFreeSpot.com offers four free locations in Honolulu.

Honolulu Coffee Company, 1001 Bishop Street in the American Savings Tower, 521-4400

Cove Bar in the Ala Moana Center Food Court, 1450 Ala Moana Boulevard, 946-6245

Hula's Bar and Lei Stand, Waikiki Grand Hotel 2nd floor, 923-0669

Coffee Talk, Corner of Waialae and 12th Avenues, 737-7444.

Two more appear with a zip-code search on http://intel.jiwire.com

UH Libraries -- Hamilton, 956-7214, Sinclair, 956-6922.

Hawaii Medical Library, 1221 Punchbowl Street (next to Queen's Medical Center), 546-9302.

If you're willing to pay, there are a lot more Wi-Fi zones available. At least 14 more in Honolulu.

Borders Bookstore, Ala Moana Blvd, 591-8995, is one location offering paid access; then there are the big including the Radisson Waikiki Prince Kuhio, 922-0811, the Hilton Hawaiian Village, 949-4321, and the Renaissance Illikai, 949-3811. Cost varies but figure ten dollars a day or ten cents a minute as a likely price. There are monthly access rates available also.

There are sites listed where no information is given, for example, Dunkin Donuts Waikiki, 131 Kaiulani Ave., 735-6600 For this and other locations, it's always good to call ahead to confirm Wi-Fi access and pricing.

Most indoor Wi-Fi zones are relatively small. They may cover an area only a few hundred feet around the actual access point. However there are large Wi-Fi clouds in downtown areas of some U.S. cities. University towns such as Gainesville, Florida and Athens, Georgia seem more likely to offer Wi-Fi clouds as a public service. Other towns are experimenting with Wi-Fi clouds as an enticement to business with mixed results. Tacoma, Washington recently took down their civic cloud.

Logging on at a hotspot will let you do anything you can do from a hard-wired connection. However, it is possible you cannot send or receive email if your local internet service provider requires a direct connection to the Internet.

If your best connection is a modem dial-up, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the speed of the Wi-Fi connection. Be aware, however, that your communications may not be secure. Security depends on the individual hotspot. So, unless you're sure it's secure, restrict your Wi-Fi hotspot use to non-critical email and web surfing.

Of course, to do any of this, you'll need a wireless/Wi-Fi enabled device. Most newer laptops are already configured for wireless. If not, you'll need to both have a wireless adapter card and know how to use it. If you usually use a dial-up connection, you need to change that default. Other tasks to consider: set TCP/IP properties, get the SSID name from the location (or choose "any"), and turn encryption off.

James Kerr is President/CEO of SuperGeeks, a Hawaii-based computer service and repair company (www.supergeeks.net). Please feel free to send your questions, comments and suggestions to Mr. Kerr. He can be reached at kerr@supergeeks.net and 942-0773.