Hotspots
What are Hotspots
As understood in the internet jargon, a hotspot is any physical location that has WiFi access to the internet. Telecoms giants like Orange, BT and Vodafone have locations wired for WiFi which is just a wireless LAN that has an access gadget broadcasting the required WiFi radio frequency spectrum so that anyone with a laptop, netbook or mobile phone suitably equipped for WiFi can wirelessly sense or detect the access frequencies so you can initiate an internet session.
These hotspots can be in shopping malls, restaurants, cafes or coffee chops, hotels and hotel lobbies, airport lounges, gas stations, college and school campuses, train, bus and shipping terminals and just about any location where people mill around.
The wireless phenomenon can also be found in government offices. They are about everywhere in both developed and developing countries around the world. In the UK, hotspots are as ubiquitous as mobile phone sites that you can be online from anywhere in the country.
A Short History
WiFi Hotspots were first alluded to in 1993 by Brett Steward as he was attending the NetWorld conference in San Francisco. While the term wasn’t exactly used, his reference to a public LAN that anyone can access points to a direct definition of what a hotspot is. Steward would go on to found various companies starting with Plancom in 1994 which became MobileStar and T-Mobile’s Hotspot unit. The term itself may have been first used by Nokia a good five years after Steward’s concept.
By the end of 2000, many companies considered WiFi as the “payphone” equivalent for public internet access. Thus, eventually you got commercial hotspots that require one time or monthly subscription as well as hotspots that you get for free. The sputtering of commercial and free hotspots will continue to grow to make internet access available anywhere and soon, even in remote areas.
