Pearl Street in Boulder, CO becomes an Internet ‘hot spot’- Business group pilots high-speed Web access on Mall

Those sitting on park benches along the 1200 block of the Pearl Street Mall can do more than just watch passersby from the shade or scarf down lunch on a nice day.

By Todd Neff, Daily Camera Staff Writer

A "Wi-Fi hot spot" installed by the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District lets anyone surf the Web on a high-speed wireless Internet connection — for free.

Wi-Fi (short for wireless fidelity), uses radio transmitters called "hot spots," or wireless access points, to make a high-speed Internet connection for a laptop, cellular phone or personal digital assistant.

Widely used in home and office networks, Wi-Fi systems operate on the same unlicensed radio spectrum as many cordless phones and have a range of about 100 yards.

On Pearl Street, all you need to connect is a Wi-Fi-capable computing device and a place to sit (or stand) between Broadway and 13th Street along the mall.

The hot spot is mounted on the Broadway Suites Building, which holds Subway and Abercrombie & Fitch. On a bench just outside the building Tuesday afternoon, Dwight Reifsnyder, the Office Partners information technology consultant who installed the network, logged on.

He attained near-cable-modem speeds as he bounced between Yahoo!, Google and the Boulder County Fair Web sites, a light rain dappling his keyboard.

"I usually see three to four people every day here when I walk in and out of the building," he said. "It has become a very popular bench."

Not everybody had such luck. Tuesday at about noon, Chris Grasso, a Ph.D. computer and electrical engineer who teaches a course on spacecraft software systems at the University of Colorado, attempted to access the network. Yet his considerable computing expertise proved insufficient to get his Apple PowerBook G4 to connect.

The problem was probably his location, across from Art Source International. Performance degrades as you near 13th Street.

Still, Grasso wasn’t discouraged.

"I think it’s an outstanding idea," he said.

The network was announced to pedestrians Friday, when the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District stuck little white signs in three planters. They say "Free Wi-Fi Hot Spot!" and give basic information on how to connect.

The network has been in place since winter, said Jane Jenkins, executive director of the improvement district. Jenkins said she didn’t promote it then because it’s an outdoor system.

"Who wants to go out there and play with it when there’s snow on the ground?" she said.

Jenkins said the system cost about $3,000 and that no city money was involved. The system’s purpose, she said, is to make downtown Boulder a more attractive place to do business.

Groups in Portland, Ore.; New York City; San Francisco and other cities also offer free outdoor Wi-Fi access.

In Long Beach, Calif., the city’s Economic Development Bureau has partnered with local technology businesses to establish a three-block Wi-Fi "hotzone" in the heart of the business district — to attract visitors and companies as well as businesses.

If the system brings business to downtown Boulder, the business improvement district could expand the network to cover the entire mall.

"As we learn and people give us feedback, we plan to expand it so you can have access on all four blocks of the Pearl Street Mall," Jenkins said.

Contact Todd Neff at [email protected] or (303) 473-1327.

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