Janak Parekh
02-03-2003, 11:30 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2009-1033-982099.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2009-1033-98209...ag=fd_lede1_hed</a><br /><br /></div>Starting today, CNET is publishing a 5-part series about the wireless "boom". The 5 articles will cover topics ranging from municipality-sponsored wireless, to security and standards, to a discussion on Wi-Fi.<br /><br />The <a href="http://news.com.com/2009-1033-982322.html?tag=sr_toc">first article</a>'s graph on wireless coverage is particularly eye-opening. Wi-Fi has truly become very, very popular.<br /><br />"Athens is among a disparate but growing group of communities around the country that are experimenting with wireless networking, which only a year ago was considered little more than a diversion for technophiles. Communities such as Long Beach, Calif., and Ashland, Ore., are counting on Wi-Fi's popularity as a way to revive moribund downtowns that have steadily lost business to suburban malls for decades.<br /><br />Just as venture capital fueled the Internet economy, municipal grants are being used to seed a projected boom in wireless networks. The challenge facing cities, just as it was for dot-com entrepreneurs, is to distill ways of making money from a largely amorphous technology."