By Kim Crompton


Of the Journal of Business


Imagine being able to get broadband access to stock-market quotes, breaking news, and office work systems and e-mail from your handheld or laptop computer while relaxing on a bench in Riverfront Park. That soon may be possible, thanks to local entrepreneurs and the fast-emerging technology known as wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi.


The technology uses an unlicensed radio spectrum, under whats referred to as the 802.11b standard, to create a high-frequency wireless local area network. It operates in the 2.4 gigahertz range, a congestion-prone frequency space utilitized by cordless phones and other devices, but offers relatively fast data-transfer speeds.


Because the technology uses unlicensed bandwidth, its cheap and easy to deploy. It creates whats known as a hot spot with a typical range of several hundred feet where people with properly equipped laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs) can access the Internet without a wired connection or use of slower cell-phone transmissions.


There now are at least six free public hot spots in downtown Spokane, and more are in the works. The current hot spots include the Davenport Hotel, Steam Plant Square, the Rocket Bakery outlet in the Holly Mason Building, Rock City Grill in the Fernwell Building, the Soulful Soups restaurant on Howard Street, and the Daily Grind coffee shop in the U.S. Bank Building.


I like what it does for Spokane, says Greg Green, chairman and CEO of OneEighty Networks Inc., a Spokane-based broadband communications company that installed five of the free public hot spots. Its a sexy product. It gives people the opportunity to do business outside of their offices.


Ryan Maloney, CEO of NetRiver Inc., which installed the Davenport Hotels Wi-Fi network, says, I think it has a lot of potential, particularly if the providers could be tied together to provide a seamless network in the downtown area.


Green says OneEightys plan is essentially to cover downtown at some point, including possibly through a collaboration with Vivato, a Wi-Fi infrastructure company that has opened a research-and-development center here. He says he would like to see OneEighty expand its free public service to cover Riverfront Park, perhaps by this summer.


Chad Skidmore, OneEightys president, says, Overall we think it drives broadband awareness, and thus gives the company and its other communications services added exposure. He says OneEighty has been reluctant thus far to offer Wi-Fi networking as a fee-based commercial service because of frequency-congestion issues that can cause spotty service.


Green says, though, that OneEighty hopes to convert the free public sites to paid sites on their installation first-anniversary dates, after having given people a year-long period to try them out at no cost. He says the company hasnt decided yet on an appropriate monthly fee, but adds that customers who use other OneEighty broadband services will continue to have free access to the companys Wi-Fi networks.


Commercial use


Wi-Fi networks here arent confined, though, just to downtown or to public spaces, nor are they all free. The technology is being introduced by a number of providers in commercial, institutional, and residential applications here, from the West Plains to Liberty Lake.


For example, Spokane-based Contineo Technologies is installing a Wi-Fi network at Valley Hospital & Medical Center that should benefit doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers there, says Craig Sanders, Contineos president and chief technology officer.


It also has installed Wi-Fi networks in a number of Best Western hotels in Washington, including the Best Western Peppertree Airport Inn, at 3711 S. Geiger Blvd., and the Best Western Peppertree Liberty Lake Inn, he says.


In general commercial applications, we find its a very effective tool for many companies that want to improve communications for workers within their buildings, Sanders says.


He says, though, that he expects demand for it to be strongest in the health-care industry, because you have so many roving professionals, and in education, because it gives professors, teachers, and students the flexibility to be anywhere on campus and attach to the networks.


Residential use


On the residential side, two communications companies here have been working recently with Cedar Builders Inc., one of Spokanes multifamily-property owners, to begin making Wi-Fi service available to tenants in about 2,200 apartment units. Several local providers also have turned Liberty Lake into a hotbed of residential Wi-Fi network development activity, industry observers say.


Judging by the expanding inventory of inexpensive Wi-Fi hardware on computer store shelves, a growing number of residents here who have high-speed Internet access in their homes also are buying the equipment and installing it themselves.


A consumer now can buy both a wireless access point, basically a radio transceiver that serves as a bridge between a wired network and wireless devices, and a networking card, which fits into the wireless device, for less than $100. Most new laptops now come already equipped by the manufacturer to operate on Wi-Fi networks and dont require the separate purchase of networking cards.


NetRivers Maloney says a small business can set up a Wi-Fi network, creating its own hot spot with commercial-grade equipment, for as little as $500 to $600 for the radio transceiver and about $100 for each wireless device.


For now, though, the most visible evidence of Wi-Fis growing popularity is at the coffee shops, cafes, hotel lounges, and business courtyards where people go to get away from the normal daily distractions.


Starbucks Corp., for example, is offering wireless Internet access on a monthly-fee basisincluding at all of its Spokane-area locationsto draw patrons to its cafes, and Borders Books & Music, which opened its first Spokane store last fall in the Northpointe Plaza, reportedly will begin a similar service this spring.


NetRivers Maloney says the Davenport Hotels system has worked out well so far. There were 13 users logged onto the system as he spoke with a reporter last week, and he says it has hit peaks of 30 to 35 users at one time.


Weve seen a lot of people who come down there on a regular basis just because they have the ability to get on the Internet (free) at high speed. One person comes down weekly to do his Quicken Bill Pay, he says.


Its definitely bringing people into the hotel who wouldnt necessarily otherwise come in from the local community, Maloney says, and then its generating business for the hotel in food and beverage sales.


Todd Woodard, spokesman for Spokane International Airport, says Wi-Fi is a service we foresee offering to our customers, though probably not for a couple of years due to infrastructure costs and the need for further research into how best to offer it and whether to charge for it.