Major British airport to roll out wireless Net access LONDON (Reuters) =97 Wi-Fi, one of the year's most hyped new technologies,= =20 landed at Heathrow Airport on Monday with the opening of a high-speed=20 wireless computing zone for travellers. Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, will=20 allow people to access the Internet and e-mails from their laptop computers= =20 at public "hot spots" including airport lounges, hotel lobbies and coffee=20 shops equipped with special transmitters. U.S. chip giant Intel is one of=20 the technology heavyweights banking on the expectation that wireless=20 surfing will jumpstart tepid demand for laptop computers. It has invested=20 tens of millions of dollars in a global marketing push behind Centrino, a=20 new wireless technology built into new laptops that enables wireless=20 surfing over the transmission technology, 80211.b. "In the UK, we'd like to= =20 see 2,000 hot spots by year-end. There are 800 now," David Mitchell, head=20 of brand marketing for Intel UK, told Reuters on Monday. He added Britain= =20 is the second most advanced Wi-Fi market in Europe, behind Scandanavia. The= =20 United States has the most Wi-Fi connection points. Intel has teamed up=20 with a host of firms in Britain, including telecoms company BT Group and=20 airports operator BAA. In addition to the arrivals lounge of Heathrow's Terminal One, the=20 companies have rigged hotspots at London's Gatwick, Stansted airports and=20 the Aberdeen airport. Intel said the technology was also launched at Paris'= =20 Charles De Gaulle Airport last week, while Frankfurt Airport would go live= =20 next month. The Wi-Fi service, which promises connection speeds=20 considerably higher than dial-up home broadband, commands a price in the UK= =20 and Europe aimed at the business professional. BT, for example, charges =A36= =20 ($9.30) per hour or =A385 per month. A big criticism is the lack of roaming= =20 agreements between Europe's various Wi-Fi operators, which also include=20 Europe's second biggest mobile phone operator, T-Mobile. For example,=20 London's Paddington Station is equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots operated by=20 Swisscom, making a BT offering redundant in the same place for now. "It's=20 the very early days. We're hoping over the next year we'll see roaming=20 agreements so you can have an account with one group and be able to connect= =20 to another group's hot spot," said Mitchell. In another development, U.S.=20 airplane maker Boeing will give a presentation in London on Tuesday to=20 discuss its plans for equipping commercial planes with Wi-Fi technology. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.carstt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************