Boston-based Mac business consultant Tech Superpowers Inc. is behind the expansion of free Wi-Fi service in Boston and Somerville. The company is already responsible for the free Wi-Fi network Newburyopen.net which operates on Boston’s trendy Newbury Street shopping district in the Back Bay. Four new spots are now up and running, thanks to the company’s efforts: A wireless kiosk located in a bus station, a new location located in nearby Somerville, Mass, and two new spots on Mass. Ave in Boston.
Newburyopen.net offers free wireless networking access near Tech Superpowers’ Newbury Street, Boston headquarters. The company has enlisted the help of several Newbury Street merchants to relay Wi-Fi access to their locations — eight, in total — providing customers with high-speed wireless networking access at several cafés and shops in the tony shopping area located in Boston’s Back Bay. Tech Superpowers also maintains its own free Wi-Fi access as well as full blown pay-by-the-hour Internet stations, if you’re not carrying your PowerBook or iBook with you.
Tech Superpowers CEO Michael Oh is a strong proponent of wireless networking, and he and his company have actively evangelized the concept of businesses offering free wireless networking to their customers. A downloadable PDF available from the Newburyopen.net Web site tells others how to do it.
Oh likened Wi-Fi to air conditioning or milk for coffee in a recent interview with the Boston Globe : Oh said that Wi-Fi should be an amenity that customers should expect from certain businesses without paying additionally for them.
To that end, Tech Superpowers collaborated with CityKi to set up a wireless kiosk in the Dudley Square MBTA bus station located in nearby Roxbury, an urban neighborhood of Boston that Tech Superpowers describes as “another planet” when it comes to providing affordable residential computing and Internet access.
The kiosk connects to the Internet through a directional antenna-equipped Apple AirPort Base Station located at a nearby office of the Urban League of Massachusetts. The system, equipped with a keyboard and touchscreen, provides passersby with links to health resources, government agencies, bus and subway schedules, free e-mail access and other services.
Tech Superpowers has also donated installation services for Carberry’s Bakery and Coffee House in Davis Square, a popular spot in Somerville, Mass. Internet service provider Speakeasy is offering Wi-Fi access for the spot. Tech Superpowers is working with the City of Somerville to set up Davis Square as a “hot zone” of free Wi-Fi access, though Carberry’s decided to get on the Wi-Fi bandwagon itself, separately.
Oh also told MacCentral that Tech Superpowers assisted two other spots to set up their free Wi-Fi services: The Wrap and Cassava, two restaurants located on Mass Ave., a short distance from Newbury Street. (The Wrap’s Newbury Street location is part of the Newburyopen.net network already.)