Wi-Fi in the oddest places

Posted April 14, 2008 at 03:21 PM by Jason Tabrys

Section: Computers, Wireless, Originals

With signs popping up all over the urban and even suburban landscape, “Free Wi-Fi” seems to be the newest hipster selling point for hotels and coffee shops. But in the internet revolution few seem willing to miss the bus. Big box retailers, goliath in the retail wars, are moving at an unusually rapid pace to meet the demand. With Borders Books and Barnes and Noble already on board and Northeastern Supermarket chain Super Stop and Shop offering free Wi-Fi to its customers among the fresh produce and snack crackers. Wal-Mart, the store that has everything, and seems to be everywhere would not respond to my query regarding any possible Wi-Fi offering in the future, which reinforces the notion that I am merely a bug on life’s windshield. To Wal-Mart, an entity at least twice as expansive as all life itself I am even more insignificant I suppose.

Now stores and coffee shops are great, truly useful stations for almost everyone but Wi-Fi appears to be popping up in a few unusual places as well. Hospital stays, once a guarantee of time spent out of touch from the rest of the world now seem on the cutting edge as many have begun implementing the service for patients and visitors. For those sad times of loss the Mayfield-Kiser Funeral Home in Ft. Worth, Texas seeks to help mourners stay connected, perhaps making it a little easier on those trying to coordinate services in the information age. The family owned and operated business began offering free Wi-Fi as “a public service for families who travel from out of town.” according to Roy Kiser. A novel way to accommodate during a hard time.

As is the case with any emerging technology, Wi-Fi has of course had its controversies. Particularly in the UK where due to parental protest over the possible health hazards related to electromagnetic waves several school districts pulled away from Wi-Fi, returning to more conventional ways of accessing the web. In Africa companies like FGC, have worked to bring Wi-Fi access to Freetown, which now boasts one of the few city wide free Wi-Fi networks in the world. Though this is a start, the effort to bring the technology and infrastructure to poorer sections of the content have been slow to develop but still seem promising for the future, with programs like the “One Laptop One Child” program of providing low cost laptops to the children of Africa with built in Wi-Fi compatibility and others like it hopefully spurring not just the want, but the need for Wi-Fi. At the dawn of this new day when we all seem so far, but are really available at the touch of a button it is heartening to know that wherever you go, the world comes with you, albeit with a convenient on/off switch.