City connects with wireless 'hot spots'

Marion Square is a great place to throw a Frisbee, read a book, check out the Charleston Farmers Market on Saturday mornings and, as of this week, check your e-mail.

The park has become the city's newest WiFi "hot spot," an area with an antenna hung nearby that lets Web surfers go online without plugging in.

People with a relatively new or reconfigured laptop and a $3 access card can now loll on the grass and e-mail their co-workers, apply for jobs or shop online. Telecom experts, however, wonder how many people will actually use general, public-access networks.

The park is the latest step in a Chamber of Commerce campaign to cultivate investment in wireless networks on the peninsula and beyond. Starting in February with Kool Beanz Koffee & Kreme on King Street, the chamber has footed the $500 startup fee for 11 new hot spots around town.

The list includes the Embassy Suites, the Doubletree Inn & Suites downtown, Just Fresh cafe and Wholly Cow ice cream shop at Aquarium Wharf, and three Moe's restaurants. The chamber said Atlanta Bread Co. in Mount Pleasant Towne Centre and Port City Java downtown are next on its list.

Wireless Web surfers can buy access cards at the chamber or any of the participating companies. WiFi access costs $3 an hour, $8 a day, $15 a week or $30 a month.

Aerolina Inc., a 2-year-old wireless Internet company based in Charleston, is providing the hardware. Revenue from card sales is split between Aerolina and the company where the network is set up.

About 35 people, including Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., headed down to Marion Square Thursday to get online, as the Chamber of Commerce launched the latest hot spot. The mayor and business leaders view these spots as another feather in the city's cap, a powerful economic development tool and testament to a progressive community.

"The fact that on a beautifully restored urban square someone can have a wireless connection to the Internet is a very powerful image," Riley said Friday. "If you wanted to create an ad for Charleston as a great place to do business, that visual image would be hard to beat. ... By being ahead of the curve on things like the hot spots or the digital corridor, we help position Charleston to be a leader in the New Economy, and the bottom line of that is to create great jobs that pay well."

Ernest Andrade, who directs business recruitment for the city's digital corridor initiative, said WiFi networks are quickly becoming essential to court tech companies looking for a home. But to date, participation has been slim. Aerolina and participating companies have only sold 275 access cards so far.

"You've got to have a valuable network with 30, 40, 50 locations before people start buying monthly subscriptions," said Scott Adams, co-founder of Aerolina. "It's going to take some time before people really start carrying wireless laptops to lunch, reading their e-mail instead of a newspaper as they eat."

Obie Morant, co-owner of Kool Beanz, said the WiFi installation in his shop hasn't brought more customers so far. "We provide a different atmosphere for folks and hopefully, eventually, the Internet thing will have a lot to do with that, but thus far it's kind of an extra." It's uncertain how much of a boost he'll get, given the still-low participation levels and the low profitability of WiFi endeavors nationwide.

There's also the big question of how many companies will sign on for wireless networks without chamber dollars footing the bill. A lot of big telecomm companies and venture capital firms are betting big money on WiFi.

Hot spots are popping up all over the country. Hotels and airports are some of the more popular sites, but parks, convenience stores and oil-changing shops are also signing up for wireless networks.

There's no doubt the WiFi train is running at a breakneck pace, but telecomm analysts think much of the WiFi capital investment is going to waste. Many compare the current state of WiFi to the dot-com landscape of the late 1990s --- when big money was lost as start-up Internet companies couldn't develop business models to profitably drive their Web sites and services.

"There are early land grabs by companies today, because it's hard to find where the hot spots are," said Charles Golvin, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, a Bellevue, Wash.-based consulting firm that is tracking WiFi closely. "They want to put their names in people's heads when they go looking for a WiFi network. ... I do believe that venture-capital investments going into general public access are ill-founded."

Analysts believe that there will eventually be profitable markets for widespread WiFi use, but most say it won't be found with the general public, at least not for some time.

Companies like UPS and Federal Express use WiFi to track shipments. Some police departments are developing WiFi zones in which officers outfitted with laptops and handheld computers can tap into criminal databases. Business travelers are also considered a viable market, people with financial backing who are on the move and crunched for time.

"Right now, there's very little profit in the standard hot spot locations," Adams said. "But hopefully it will build on itself."