How does it work?

802.11b is an international standard from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for wireless local area networks that operates at up to 11 megabits per second and has a range of 100-1000 feet. 802.11b, also called by its marketing moniker "Wi-Fi", has now become the most popular worldwide standard for setting up wireless local area networks in offices, homes and public spaces. Competing technologies such as HomeRF have been abandoned and hundreds of equipment suppliers are rallying around Wi-Fi. Billions of dollars in R&D and manufacturing capacity is now pointed at churning out Wi-Fi products. Laptop computers from major PC manufacturers have Wi-Fi built-in. New appliances such as portable phones, MP3 players, digital picture frames and toys will soon be Wi-Fi compatible.

Competition has already driven down the costs of deploying Wi-Fi networks from thousands to hundreds of dollars. As a result, Wi-Fi networks are now being deployed aggressively by businesses to give their employees mobility within the enterprise. Home users are buying cheap Wi-Fi gear to extend their DSL or cable broadband Internet access wirelessly to the entire house. Major consumer ISPs such as EarthLink are even selling inexpensive Wi-Fi home gateways.

Public Space Deployment
In addition to homes and enterprises, Wi-Fi networks are now popping up in public spaces. Users who already have a Wi-Fi network at home or the office don't need to buy any new equipment to connect.

These new public networks are fast - 11 megabits per second, up to 200 times faster than a modem connection and more than 4 times faster than the speeds promised by "3G" networks. Wi-Fi public networks use unlicensed frequencies and are cheap to set up and operate, so they will be far less expensive than 3G for the end user. Most importantly, Wi-Fi public access is available now.

Wi-Fi Hot Spot operators
Though it is still early, a number of wireless network companies ("Hot Spot operators") are actively building Wi-Fi networks in public spaces such as hotels, airports, conference centers and retail establishments like Starbucks. They typically strike a deal with a landlord to deploy wireless access points ("APs" - Wi-Fi wireless transmitter hubs) in the facility and then pay the landlord monthly fees and/or a cut of revenue.

A Wi-Fi AP has a maximum typical range of 500 to 1000 feet. So making Wi-Fi ubiquitous in all public spaces will require an enormous number of Hot Spot operators.

In addition to the large players, like the early days of the wired commercial Internet, we should expect a frothy market for small Hot Spot operators. It's a necessity of the technology and its range, and there's plenty of business to go around.

There are already hundreds of small Hot Spot operators operating one or more access points in cities like Seattle, San Francisco and New York. Becoming a small hotspot operator is inexpensive and easy.

More and more hotspot operators will translate into more and more confusion for end users, and increase the importance of a company to bring all networks together into a single service.

Customers
While public Wi-Fi networks are popping up all over the place, trying to connect and use them as an end user is a frustrating experience.

Configuring the software provided by Wi-Fi hardware companies is clumsy, requiring users to learn about arcane settings such as "SSID" (network names) and "WEP" (network security). Users are expected by Hot Spot operators to manually configure their Wi-Fi cards to gain access. But at the same time, Hot Spot operators provide little or no technical support.

The limited coverage of any one hotspot operator means that users will need to sign up for different Hot Spot operators depending on where they are. For example, if a user at LAX walks from an airline club to a gate area he will need to sign up with a new hotspot operator. No one hotspot operator can hope to have a large enough footprint to serve a single customer wherever he/she goes.

Boingo^® Service
Boingo provides access to its customers using Wi-Fi public networks. Instead of deploying its own network infrastructure, Boingo purchases from Wi-Fi hotspot operators on a wholesale basis, integrates these networks together and sells a single service to its customers.

Boingo is the first wireless broadband Internet service with a wide reach. Boingo has the easiest-to-use wireless broadband footprint in the world. Instead of building Wi-Fi networks, Boingo focuses on the complex integration of tens of thousands of hotspots around the world into a single roaming system. Boingo markets to, supports and bills the end user.

As the market expands and evolves, Boingo will also make new broadband wireless technologies, such as 802.11a and Ultra Wide Band, available to its customers.

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