From Greg's Head

I'm on my soapbox again about Houston and Harris County's lack of Wi-Fi hotspots.

According to JiWire, not only did the number of worldwide Wi-Fi Hotspots surpass the 50,000 milestone in 2005 (with hotels and other location types that cater to the business traveler as the largest contributors), but the number increased by 100 percent!

This is more than a fad or trend … it's the way of doing business. With the technological innovations so prevalent in Houston, why can't we match and even beat the number of Wi-Fi hotspots in other cities?

Where are Houston's hotspots? Respond to the blog with your comments and share your thoughts.

Greg -- I guess the number of Houston hot spots will increase as demand increases -- the solution should not be a govt. contract giving a company sole rights (or even shared rights) for the Houston "Wi Fi" region. If that happens - then it will turn into another mess like we have with Houston's cable providers. The free market (supply and demand)should be the driver. Besides there are enough Starbucks in town (some on opposite sides of the same street) - where people can go.

John:

Thanks for the comment, and please stop by in the future and share with us your comments. As the publisher for the Houston Business Journal, I'm sure you see lots of queries in this sector.

In general I agree that free enterprise should be the order of the day, but how do Houstonians enjoy this wired environment in city and county parks when a Starbucks is not close by? Is the technology advancing fast enough so broadband wireless access takes the place of WiFi?

In this way, the mess with cable providers could be avoided.

Greg -
It seems your neighbor to the north may be ahead of Houston! There was an article in the Dallas Morning News that talked about how the city hopes to roll out free WiFi access to city parks and libraries later this year.

Although the cost was not disclosed, the article reported that enabling wireless would come out of city department current budgets.

You'll find the article at http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-wifi_06met.ART0.North.Edition2.9180264.html.

Municipal WiFi is a market driver and Houston should implement it as soon as possible. That being said, I'd want the government in all its forms to stay out of this endeavor. I think that one of the easiest ways to get around the red tape is to have a city wide marketing campaign to get every business with a wireless AP to publish their information. The security risk in this can be averted by closing certain ports on the router. While this sounds complicated, it's easily accomplished by posting the instructions on a central website, that also has the logo of the company - very much like JiWire, but with the angle of marketing the company itself - so that it can be considered a donation or marketing expense. I know that this has been done in pockets of other cities, and it can easily be done here.