By Frik Els
Senior writer

MANY if not most coffee shops in urban areas of the US, such as the popular Starbucks (and even some McDonald’s fast food outlets) come equipped with wireless Internet access points, called hotspots. South Africa’s Internet service providers have Wi-Fi-enabled a limited number of retail outlets and airport lounges and Telkom through it’s T-Zone project and Transtel and partner Wireless G plan to have around 100 locations each before year-end.

In the US the rapid growth of public wireless access is a function of entrepreneurs exploiting cheap bandwidth, but the high cost of SA bandwidth means that small businesses struggle to find a profitable Wi-Fi business model.

The Independent Communications Authority of SA’s ruling against Telkom in October last year made hotspots legal as long as they’re located within a company or retailer’s premises. Though research company Gartner says that the number of worldwide public hotspots in hotels, airports and retail outlets and community-based hotspots (for example, residential complexes) should reach roughly 130 000 this year SA will make up a fraction of these.

Prospects for growth in the number of wireless offices in SA are better. The fact that SA lags far behind the US is not just a technological issue, says Osorio Ramos, MD of Structured Projects Worklife, a company that specialises in workspace design and workplace re-engineering. “Cost and the still-evolving technology are important issues, but office and work culture also slow down take-up.”

Ramos says that a wireless workplace brings with it worker mobility, often no fixed workspace or so-called hot-desking, flexible office hours, greater and easier interaction with colleagues and more group communication.

Offices follow an open plan design with many communal areas, known in industry parlance as touchdown areas, dens or for the more experimental zen zones. Ramos says research has shown that more business is discussed outside formal meetings and that some of this dynamic can be seen among smokers who congregate in designated smoke rooms or outside office buildings.

“There’s still education to be done in the marketplace and I foresee large-scale investment by corporates only in two years or more.” Early adopters of the wireless office in SA have been technology companies and consulting firms.