Wi-Fi boom changes how people work, study, play
This sounds like me when I was between startups...and hung out at cafes, first using my Ricochet, and then my MobileStar subscription and a (at the time) free Surf and Sip connectio. This New York Times story (registration required) on the spread of paid-for and free Wi-Fi across the country:
Wi-Fi is also changing the way that people - at least some young, technologically adept people - go about their work. In Philadelphia, Yvonne Jones, a 33-year-old freelance copywriter, moved her base of operations to a Starbucks about a month ago and said she quickly became "a thousand times" more productive than she was when working at home. "It's not your house, and you are there for a specific purpose, so the 'distractions' aren't that distracting," she said.
...Security concerns will become more important as public Wi-Fi networks spread and more people use them. Statistics on use of the technology are elusive, but according to Gartner, a consulting company in Stamford, Conn., the number of Wi-Fi cards sold in North America this year is on track to jump 75 percent over 2001, with another 57 percent gain over this year expected in 2003. William Clark, research director at Gartner, said that the number of frequent Wi-Fi users was expected to grow to 1.9 million next year from 700,000 in 2002, with the number of public hot spots in North America likely to nearly triple by the end of next year from about 3,300 now.