It started in Universities, then coffee shops, then airports and hotel rooms, now cities are rushing to join in. Google volunteered to put wifi in San Francisco and in their home city of Mountain View, CA. Philidelphia is putting it in a deal with EarthLink. AT&T recently bid to build a wireless network for a county in Michigan. New Orleans began service to residents after Katrina damaged land lines. Tempe, Arizona launched a network in February 2006. Initially, the phone utilities fought this trend, now rather than be left behind are joining in.

WiFi Hot Spots and How To Find Them

A great resource for finding WiFi hot spots in US cities is Yahoo's Mobile site.

In April 2006 the City of San Francisco announced the Google and Earthlink would be implementing a city wide wireless network.

Check out for a comprehensive list of airports with wifi that is updated regularly.

Quikbook, the hotel booking search engine also provides a great service that allows you to find which hotels in a particular US city offers complimentary WiFi service.

The WiFi Hot Spot Directory is a massive global list that is constantly adding providers from coffee houses to libraries, street corners to universities.

An interesting proposed new wi-fi potential location is on the train from Sacramento to San Jose, CA on the 171.5 miles of the Capitol Corridor railway. Sounds like over the next few years wifi will really start to snowball.

In April 2006 there was a major announcement about Wireless Silicon Valley. A task force was put together in November 2005 and they plan on recommending a vendor in September 2006.