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WiFi Access Points in Los Angeles and Southern, California

Introduction

Wireless access or WiFi is available in Los Angeles and Southern California. Anyone with a notebook computer or compatible personal digital assistant (PDA) and an 802.11 wireless networking card can access the Internet wirelessly from a rapidly growing number of Southern California locations.

WiFi hot spots are either free or fee-based. Free WiFi hot spots are easy to use. Turn on your computer and your WiFi card will detect an existing WiFi network. Fee-based systems require that you subscribe to a service and pay either a monthly, daily, or hourly fee. If you are using a fee-based WiFi hot spot you can keep your hourly fees low by writing all outgoing email offline and sending it all at once when you log on to the WiFi network. If you are visiting Web sites with lots of text, such as news sites, download the pages or copy them to your Word processing application for reading off line.

One of the limitations you may encounter using WiFi Hotspots is the lack of convenient electrical outlets. Keep a 12 or 25 foot extension cord in your notebook computer case for those situations where you plan to be online for longer than the life of your computer's battery. Do not string your extension cord where another customer could trip on it.

If you use a free WiFi hotspot, remember to thank its provider for the service.

Do you know of L.A. WiFi access points not listed here?  If you do, please send me the location or URL.

Directories of WiFi Access Points in the Los Angeles Area