A woman sits at a table outside Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, UK, her purse slung over the back of her chair, her laptop open. The photo, in a newspaper ad for Nextel's cellular broadband Internet service, reads: "Like many working parents, I spend a lot of time running errands, shuttling kids around and sitting in waiting rooms." Wireless Internet allows her to "use this downtime" to work on marketing presentations from anywhere in Raleigh, Durham or Chapel Hill, which keeps her from spending unnecessary time in the office.
But there's one thing the ad doesn't tell you: She could be sitting in that same spot, getting wireless Internet access for free.
Carrboro offers free public access to the Web in and near the town center, making Weaver Street's inviting green lawn one of the few places in the Triangle where anyone with a Wi-Fi card in her computer can get online.
The town is in the vanguard of a movement to provide Internet access not as a luxury but as a public utility, administering its own free access points with the help of community-minded businesses and residents who contribute equipment and extra bandwidth on their own networks.
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