Telerama Wireless Corp. (TWC) has launched Wi-Fi access service in Seattle. Thirteen coffee shops currently offer the new service.

Venues where the service is available include seven Caffe Ladro locations, along with CJ Eatery, Bean Collection, LaVaca, Gingko Tea and two Cherry Street Coffee House locations.

TWC is a privately held subsidiary of Telerama Internet, which operates more than 70 Wi-Fi hotspots in Pittsburgh.

The new venture is a traditional ISP, selling both monthly DSL and dial-up Internet access services, along with Wi-Fi access on a per-minute, daily and monthly basis. TWC is intentionally focusing on the coffee shop market in order to reach early-adopter users in tech-savvy Seattle.

“Our experience in Pittsburgh is that the coffee shop has been a very good venue,” said Doug Luce, TWC’s founder and president.

Luce has over 15 years of experience in Internet services and software engineering. He relocated from Pittsburg to Seattle to start the new venture.

Luce said that TWC typically installs a Linksys WAP.11 (IEEE 802.11b) dumb access point, backed up with a Linux-based customized router, at the coffee shop venues. The whole system costs TWC $300 per hotspot to set up, while providing a range of 300 to 400 feet and access speeds of up to 5.5 Mbps.

TWC offers venue owners 33 percent of the site’s Wi-Fi revenues. In addition, TWC doesn’t charge the venue owner for installation and network maintenance. The venue owner also gets free DSL access and Splash page advertising.

Luce said that the TWC venture in Seattle is conceived as a launching pad for a national play. The company has four personnel and plans to add technicians and other staff throughout 2004 as the venture succeeds.

-- Kurt Mackie http://www.shorecliffcommunications.com/magazine/news.asp?news=3203