ITPro's Guy Matthews reports that a study of more than 1,000 Wi-Fi users by free-hotspot.com found that Wi-Fi users are actually "disposed to buy goods or services from businesses that offer them free access."

84 percent of respondents said they were more likely to become customers of businesses that offered free access, and 94 percent said free Wi-Fi would draw them back to that location.

"Creating a sense of loyalty in both new and existing customers cannot help but increase footfall and therefore sales," says Joe Brunoli, vice president of market development for free-hotspot.com.

But wireless consultant Mike Hijdra of 2 Fast 4 Wireless believes the hotspot model as whole may be short-lived. "I don't feel that this sort of service is going to stick around," he says. "The next step for operators is UMA, or universal mobile access, where you get seamless logon and logoff from wireless access point to GSM. Once you've got cheap access in the office or home and then GSM when you step outside, there's less reason to seek out hotspots."