There's lots of "scene" at the Beehive Coffeehouse on the South Side, with its incessant stream of local hipsters in varying shades of arty, bohemian chic.

		Graphic: Local Wi-Fi hot spots

But that's not the only thing that lures Oakland art student Rachel White to spend hours ensconced there, surrounded by the cafe's brightly colored walls and kitschy decor. She's there for the free wireless Web.

"I would never pay for wireless Internet," she said.

Frustratingly, her local options remain pretty slim. Hot spots -- places where so-called Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, can be picked up -- have become nearly as ubiquitous as traffic signals in the city. They are just about everywhere you'd expect -- coffee shops, restaurants, hotels -- and even in some places you wouldn't guess like a laundromat and car wash.

What's not so easy is finding one that's free. While the Beehive is one among nearly 200 and growing Wi-Fi hot spots in the Pittsburgh area that offer high-speed wireless Web surfing for laptops equipped for it, it's only one of a handful that offers the service for free.

White, who moved to Pittsburgh a little over a year ago from New York, is having a hard time understanding why free Wi-Fi isn't more common. "I'm used to being able to get free Internet everywhere," she said.

On a recent evening, White and her friend Britta Sall were in the Beehive's smoking section to use the Internet and hang out. Sall doesn't have an Internet connection, so the duo made their way to the coffee shop.

Free Wi-Fi hot spot providers such as the Beehive say it's a matter of customer service.

In places frequented by professionals, free wireless is expected, said Allegheny County Airport Authority spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny. The Pittsburgh International Airport has been offering free Wi-Fi in its food court since fall 2003 and in its terminals since last year.

Jenny said an average of about 40 to 50 travelers log on during the airport's peak hours from 6 a.m. to about 9 p.m.

Coffee and sandwich chain Panera Bread Co. offers free Wi-Fi to customers, as do North Side cafe and bar True, the Beehive's neighbor Tuscany Cafe and Downtown's Omni William Penn Hotel. The William Penn also rents a wireless adapter card for $9.95 to guests whose laptops are not Wi-Fi ready.

Business owners say the relatively low-cost of setting up a DSL or local area network line and then buying the wireless antennas or "access points" that can cost as little as $30 is worth it.

"We do have more people who come in to use the Internet," said Beehive co-owner Scott Kramer. "People come in and buy coffee and spend money."

On the other hand, several local businesses that make Wi-Fi available for a fee through Oakland-based Telerama Internet don't seem too concerned about losing customers -- yet.

"I don't think we have enough people in here [surfing the Web] to offer it for free," said sales clerk Piama Habibullah at Kiva Han, an Oakland coffee house.

It is common, she added, to see patrons who do use the service to spend hours on the Web as they sip their beverages. But unlike the Beehive, most Kiva Han Web surfers tend to be 30 and older, she said, pointing to the gray-haired, glasses-clad customer who sat against the wall, head nearly buried in his computer screen.

The older customers can afford Telerama's subscription fees, but the students refuse, she said.

"Most students aren't going to pay for it -- they don't have to," she added -- both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University offer free Wi-Fi to students, faculty and staff.

Telerama has wired nearly 80 local locations for Wi-Fi access, and gives those businesses a third of its fees -- $4.95 daily or $29.95 monthly for customers who log on -- as well as free equipment.

The lure of those fees is why Chief Executive Officer Doug Luce isn't worried about eventually being pushed out by businesses who figure they'll attract more patrons with the promise of free Internet.

Besides, Luce said, most of his customers are people who want convenient wireless access at multiple locations, not free access at a few. "They are going around the city they live in and they are looking for wireless."

He cites himself as an example of someone who'll pay the price not to be limited to the office of home. Before moving to Seattle last year, Luce was known to work from various Telerama Wi-Fi hot spots, including Soba Restaurant in Shadyside and La Strada Downtown.

With 75 percent of laptops now being shipped wireless ready, Wi-Fi is making computer users even more mobile and boosting the demand for hot spots, according to the Austin-based trade association Wi-Fi Alliance.

In the past three years, the number of hot spots worldwide went from almost none to nearly 60,000 last year. Locally, the number of hot spots has quadrupled since late 2002, when there were only 30.

A free hot spot is akin to bars and restaurants decades ago with brightly lit signs advertising "air-conditioning," said Frank Hanzlik, the trade group's managing director.

"You'd see the sign in the window and you'd go in. People just started expecting it.''

Hanzlik thinks it is too early to forecast whether Wi-Fi eventually will be free in most establishments, but he said wireless connections are fast becoming another customer-drawing amenity.

In fact, Wi-Fi hot spots have become so popular and ubiquitous that Internet cafes, the hot fad just a few years ago, are almost obsolete, said Drew Celley, a Wi-Fi enthusiast who runs wireless Web sites pghwireless.com and wifimaps.com.

"Wi-Fi makes sense now that costs are so low -- it's starting to be a big trend," he said.

However, Pittsburgh is a bit behind the curve. Cities such as Boston, Seattle and New York have an abundance of Wi-Fi spots, many of which offer the service for free, Celley said.

Celley, who tracks to growth of wireless technology across the country said he's not sure why Pittsburgh has lagged in sprouting Wi-Fi, much less free wireless access. "I'm stumped," he said, adding that he too, won't pay for wireless Internet.

Beehive proprietor Kramer, with his partner Steve Zumoff, launched their free Wi-Fi hot spot because they spotted a trend making its way down to Pennsylvania from New York.

"My partner said everyone will be offering Internet for free, so we'll jump ahead and be the first one," said Kramer.

A year later, Zumoff and Kramer still remain one of a handful.

Joining them recently is South Side-based bar Hkan, which offers patrons free Wi-Fi on top of its main draw -- flavored tobacco out of an exotic Middle Eastern pipe known as a hookah.

Being known as a hot spot, much less a free one, according to marketing director Bob Page, is an image boost for the Omni William Penn, and a simple marketing tool.

"If a business person is in the lobby and they flip open their laptop," he said, "that's exposure for us."