By Leah Schnurr
Wireless Internet service is popping up across Ottawa thanks to a new company called Boldstreet.
Wireless fidelity, or WiFi, uses radio waves to connect a customer’s laptop or handheld device to an established router, which then connects the user to the Internet without the need for permanent hook-ups.
WiFi is an invisible technology thats allows people to use their own computers rather than computers already set up in specific locales. WiFi allows people to surf the Net without wires.
Boldstreet president Tom Camps says that WiFi has been popular with small businesses because it doesn’t affect the ambiance of the location.
“We don’t want to make a whit of difference,” says Camps.
WiFi connection points, called “hotspots,” are now available at local bars, restaurants and coffee shops across the city.
Camps points to the Roasted Cherry Coffee House on Slater Street as an example of how a café can be Internet accessible without becoming a full-fledged Internet café.
“Businessmen come here to hold meetings or do work,” says Camps.
He says WiFi creates the idea of a business friendly location which gains customer loyalty and keeps people coming back for more than just coffee.
Laurie Batstone, manager of the Roasted Cherry, says customers were slow to catch on when the café started its WiFi service last December.
Now, she says, they have many people that come in regularly to have a coffee and hook up to WiFi.
“We have regulars that come in a couple times a week for an hour to do work on their laptops,” says Batstone.
Big Daddy’s Crab Shack and Oyster Bar on Elgin Street started using WiFi a month ago.
Bar manager Cameron Entwiftle says using WiFi was a smart choice.
Entwiftle says that although their customers are not primarily business people, he has seen people bringing their laptops and logging on.
“It will definitely help increase the number of people coming in,” he says.
WiFi has not been quite so popular for all local businesses, however.
Robert Shahrasedi, manager at the Minute Car Wash on Catherine Street, says it has had a WiFi set up for five months and he has not seen anyone using it, despite the fact the 20 minute wait at the car wash seems like the perfect opportunity to check e-mail or download music to ease the wait.
But Shahrasedi says that the car wash does not plan to get rid of the WiFi connection, because there is an increasing number of people asking about the service.
He says that people do not know about the WiFi availability, but he hopes this will pick up over time.
He expects more people will hear about the service through word of mouth and come to check it out for themselves.
Kevin Murray, a server at L’Ange Internet Café on Sparks Street, says his employer does not plan to get WiFi because it is not needed.
Murray says that L’Ange is primarily a café and so Internet accessibility is only secondary for them.
They say they plan to stick with the service provider they already have.
Boldstreet currently has five WiFi locations in Centertown, and Camps says they are working on expanding to more locations in Ottawa and Toronto so that more people can experience wireless surfing.