An Answer To Multiple Wireless LAN BillsAn Answer To Multiple Wireless LAN Bills

Not every airport, hotel, or coffee-shop chain has decided it's a good idea to offer wireless access at no charge to users. That means wireless users have to deal with several vendors for the same essential service.

Take Starbucks, for instance. It has doubled the number of stores in which it offers pay-for-wireless access, from 1,200 when it launched the program in August 2002, to more than 2,700 today.

The company says it benefits from keeping customers in the store longer, because they'll presumably buy more items; the average Starbucks customer is in the store for five minutes, but the average person on the store's network stays connected for 45 minutes, says a spokesman.

Enjoyably caffeinated as such customers might be, some chafe at maintaining multiple accounts to ensure them of coverage, whether they're at an LA Starbucks or a Detroit airport.

An alternative, suggests Telechoice analyst Pat Hurley, is to use aggregators like Gric Communications Inc. or iPass, which make deals with various wired and wireless networks around the country, and provide customers with far-reaching service and billing through a single account. "Those guys have some potential, because they're making a lot of deals," he says.

The aggregators are improving their service, as well. This week, Gric announces its new Total Security Protection, a security foundation for the network that uses best-of-breed technology to keep users' communications secure. Subscribers to Gric's services won't need to worry about running VPNs or managing remote security, since the aggregator will do it for them, using software from vendors including Cisco Systems, Neoteris, NetScreen, Nortel, RSA Security, SonicWall, and Sygate.

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