http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72371-0.html?tw=rss.culture
By Marty Graham| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Jan, 03, 2007
Wi-Fi is like sand -- it gets everywhere. If you're toting your
laptop to some sunny paradise this winter, you'll find you can
combine body surfing, board surfing and web surfing at hundreds of
public beaches all over the world.
Already standard at hotels, resorts, campgrounds and RV parks, there
are an estimated quarter of a million Wi-Fi hotspots and counting,
according to chipmaker Intel. Surfing those microwaves are the 53
percent of vacation travelers who, in a recent Harris Poll, admitted
they take their laptops on their exotic getaways to stay in touch
with the boss, the family and the sitters, to send photos and e-mail,
and to check weather and travel plans as they go.
Jacksonville, Florida, probably had the first beach catering to those
tele-vacationers, installing Wi-Fi service over its white sand in
2001. Since then, beaches from Australia to Barbados have added
wireless service as part of the amenities.
California deserves special mention for adding wireless at 85 state
parks and beaches, starting in 2003 with San Elijo State Beach 20
minutes north of San Diego. Florida has also gone Wi-Fi, with public
access at West Palm Beach, Clearwater and St. Petersburg beaches. The
list of beaches is long, growing and surprising.
Brighton, in England, went pier-to-pier Wi-Fi at the city's beach and
boardwalk a few years ago. The rocky beach with hints of sand on the
English Channel, due south of London, has summer temperatures that
rarely crack 70 degrees, cold winters and plenty of rain and fog --
so Wi-Fi means there's finally a good reason to go to Brighton Beach.
Canada is in on the Wi-Fi clambake, with Beaches Park on Lake Ontario
in Toronto and Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver, which went Wi-Fi in
2003. Long Island beaches in New York -- among the most beautiful in
the nation -- will be part of a two-county Wi-Fi effort announced in
October.
And there's at least one nude Wi-Fi beach: Florida's Haulover Beach.
Shirley Mason, the executive director of the naturalist Beaches
Foundation, says she sees people using their laptops all the time.
"It's not what I want to do at the beach -- I'm trying to get away,"
Mason says.
Getting wireless internet to the sand has some special challenges,
says Dennis Broderick, who in 2004 helped set up a Wi-Fi system in
Hermosa Beach, California. It requires setting up an antenna tower in
a central location, without getting in the way of all the beach
frolicking.
"The trick is getting it to go the distance and through obstacles,"
Broderick says. "Hermosa Beach put theirs on the Fire Department's
roof and they've got about a mile range."
If web surfing on the beach is too pacific for you, you may be able
to get a surfboard with a computer and Wi-Fi built in. Intel built
such a prototype board for surfer Duncan Scott in 2004, but it's not
in mass production.
Hawaii, home to the majority of the nation's best beaches, has little
Wi-Fi beach access once you get away from the big resorts, according
to professor Stephen Leatherman (aka Dr. Beach).
"A lot of Hawaiian beaches are so rural they don't have drinking
water, much less wireless," Leatherman says. "But the beaches by
hotels at Waikiki and Waimea, for example, are full of people working
on laptops."
Leatherman, as Dr. Beach, writes a top 10 list of U.S. beaches every
year, and offered these for top Wi-Fi beaches, in no particular
order. All have either 802.11b or 802.11g technology.
* La Jolla Shores, California, where Wi-Fi is available through
the University of California at San Diego network
* Atlantic City, New Jersey -- a classic among urban beaches
* South Beach Miami, where there's plenty to e-mail home about
* San Elijo State Beach, California
* Clearwater Beach, Florida
* Caladesi Beach, Florida
* Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
* Newport Beach, California
* Malibu Lagoon State Beach, California
* Waikiki and Waimea beaches, Hawaii
If your little patch of sand proves a Wi-Fi dead zone, don't despair,
says Broderick. The older the system, the more likely that the signal
is weaker and spottier. "You might have to wander around with your
laptop to find that Wi-Fi connection."
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