Each day the reach of Wi-Fi spreads further and further around the world. According to a recent study by the New York company ABI Research, there should be 143,700 hotspots (Wi-Fi access points) around the world by the end of the year: growth by 47% over 2005. And in this same study, hoteliers show up as the biggest hotspot hosts. Today some 40,000 diffusion terminals may be found within the world’s hotel inventory. After the first spectacular entry onto the sector in 2003 (particularly with the history-making partnership between Orange and the Accor Group with an aim to outfitting the entire French hotel supply), the mid- and upscale are now mostly equipped, although there is still room for growth.The market thus continues to be strong and the hotel industry continues to be interested in it. This is because internet access is not the only Wi-Fi application that interests hotel properties. Wireless technology is expanding to the world of video-surveillance (via webcams) and even plastic money: "it allows hotels to transmit credit card transactions using our secure infrastructures as well as benefit from a drop in costs and interesting uses in terms of statistics," explains Nicolas Vonthron. Many predict that the transition from plastic money to Wi-Fi will be the real detonator of the explosion of the protocol alongside the generalization of dual mode telephones meaning telephones that are compatible with both Wi-Fi and GSM. Despite less spectacular market penetration than expected, the latter should generate 3.5 billion dollars by 2009. They will surely, if it has not already happened, make hotspot indispensable in every hotel and across all categories.In France, the more economic segments such as 2* are still not there. Not yet at least. "Most people who stay at these hotels don’t have the means to purchase a portable...