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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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MARCH 18, 2003 SPECIAL REPORT: THE SQUEEZE ON WIRELESS The Magic of Wi-Fi The allure of unfettered, high-speed Internet access has many enchanted. But its real power is getting tech giants all fired up again
Across the world, thousands of people each month are having their own Wi-Fi moment. The growing ranks of New York City's unemployed are discovering that, with a $50 network card, it's as easy to zap an e-mail and résumé from wireless access points -- known as hot spots -- at Bryant Park or Starbucks as it is from their bedrooms. Former Napster aficionados are wirelessly linking their PCs to their stereos to better enjoy their MP3 collections. AD HOC HUB. For thirty-year-old London TV producer Fred Casella, his Wi-Fi moment came on a ski trip to Switzerland. The apartment he and a friend were staying in had only one phone jack with a 56K dial-up connection -- and both wanted to check their e-mail. Casella used the 56K connection connection and a built-in Wi-Fi card on his Apple PowerBook to turn his laptop into an ad hoc hot spot, allowing them to check mail quickly and get back on the slopes. What is it about Wi-Fi that's setting hearts aflutter -- and not just at Starbucks, but at tech giants such as Intel, who want in on the action? For one thing, the technology is easy to understand. A recent study by polling firm Ipsos-Reid reveals that 41% of Americans are aware of Wi-Fi -- an impressive demonstration for a technology companies began marketing to consumers just two years ago. "Wi-Fi is a combination of high-speed Internet access and cell phones," says Mark Laver, a senior analyst at Ipsos-Reid. "It's an adaptation of other technologies we already know and love." That makes Wi-Fi akin to two of the fastest-growing technologies in recent memory: Cell phones, which offered portability, and DVD players, which proved superior to VCRs thanks to clearer images and lots of extras. "NO HASSLE." In the past decade, 137 million Americans have purchased a cell phone, and more than 35 million now have a DVD player, up from hardly any just three years ago. Compare that to digital video recorders such as TiVO (TIVO ) -- a truly revolutionary technology that lets users pause live TV programming. Yet TiVO has signed up just 510,000 subscribers in five years. Even better, Wi-Fi is easy to use. "With no wires, it seems like magic," muses Ezra Goldman, a venture capitalist who used early incarnations of Wi-Fi as early as five years ago. Besides having a wireless network set up in his home so he, his four children, and their six laptops can share files, printers, and Internet access, Goldman and his partner Rob Lachman require that all the companies they invest in set up a Wi-Fi network. "That way, when we arrive, it's no hassle. We just sign in and start working," he says. Wi-Fi lovers like Goldman have tech companies excited for the first time since the dot-com bubble burst. This week, at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Assn. conference in New Orleans, the buzz was all about Wi-Fi, which carriers see as a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy outlook. No. 1 U.S. wireless provider Verizon Wireless opened the show by announcing that its subscribers soon will have Wi-Fi access at hundreds of hotels and 10 airports.
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