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Across New York City's university campuses, hotels, airports, cafes and parks, laptop users are downloading music, sending e-mails and browsing their favorite Web sites wirelessly, and in many cases, for free.
Now, office buildings are signing up for the unwired revolution. Massive complexes such as the Conde Nast Building, the Time & Life Building and the McGraw-Hill Building will roll out Wi-Fi-or wireless fidelity-over the next few months. The AOL Time Warner Center, under construction at Columbus Circle, will include a wireless network in its final plans.
Wi-Fi technology, like cell phones, allows people to get a highspeed Internet connection without wires. The 3-year-old technology makes sense in an increasingly decentralized workplace, enabling visiting sales executives and out-of-town employees to log on to the Internet without having to find an available office outlet to plug into.
Landlords of Manhattan's top commercial real estate are beginning to believe that providing the service can increase the cachet of a building, much like T-1 lines did nearly a decade ago.
"Wi-Fi is the buzzword of the moment," says Alan Stein, senior vice president of marketing and sales at The Rockefeller Group, which owns and operates the Time & Life and McGraw-Hill buildings. "To the extent that we can provide Wi-Fi nodes to our tenants, we are helping them conduct their business more efficiently and making our assets more valuable."
Last week, the McGraw-Hill Building began offering tenants, visitors and passersby...