Are you ready for the next technology revolution? I sure hope you are because it is here. Not only can it be found in big cities, but it has already spread to our sleepy little community in the Sandhills of North Carolina. That revolution is called WiFi, for Wireless-Fidelity. It is a wireless technology built on the 802.11 standard that allows wireless-enabled devices to hook up to a network without wires.

In everyday terms, WiFi lets you use any wireless-enabled device to surf the Web without wires. This is fantastic technology. I have had a wireless network in my home for several years. It lets computers in various rooms of my home access the Internet and share file without having had to tear up walls to install wiring. WiFi lets me check the weather, read up-to-the-minute news, or shop online outside on the patio. I can just sit in a lounge chair with a portable computer on my lap without a wire or cord in site.

A public place where you can use WiFi is called a “hot spot.” Hot spots have been popping up all over the place. The McDonalds that I visited in New York was a hot spot as was the airport in Boston, the Borders in Kansas City, and the Starbucks in Chicago.

I enjoyed surfing wirelessly in all of these places, but I know that the WiFi has reached revolution proportions because I recently found that the Pine Crest Inn in Pinehurst is a hot spot. For those of you not from this area who may be reading this article, you have to understand that the Pine Crest Inn is one of the oldest hotels in the area. Not only that, but as other local hotels like the Carolina or the Holly Inn have been renovated, the Pine Crest retains it’s old feel and charm.

You might expect to get wireless Internet access in the lobby of the more metropolitan Carolina Hotel, and you can, but finding it in the Pine Crest is somewhat surprising. I still think of the Pine Crest as the hotel we stayed in twenty years ago that had a vibrating bed and the fleur-de-lis wallpaper hung up side down. And although the beds are better quality now, the wallpaper has been replaced, and the front porch rebuilt, little else has changed at the Pine Crest; that is except for the Internet access.

On a recent visit, I found several people in the lobby using laptops. There was even a young lady accessing the Internet from a PDA while sitting at the bar. It felt a little unusual, but I imagine that we will see many more hot spots in our cozy little community before long and that scene will become commonplace.

So get ready for the WiFi revolution. As you look around your own hometown you are sure to see more and more people surfing the Internet in hotel lobbies, restaurants, and parks. In fact, you may even find yourself joining them!