"We love being able to take Wi-Fi to a new level," says the Bryant park Restoration Corporation's Daniel A. Biederman. "Our strategy is, 'keep improving.' Wibiki helps Bryant Park keep improving our Wi-Fi services and still keep them free."

Wibiki doesn't ask for a username or password, keeping the sign-on process as simple as possible. And on the router end, it makes it easier to implement basic security. Wibiki CEO Shant Hovnanian promises, "When Bryant Park patrons choose Wibiki free Wi-Fi, they are actually getting more secure access to the Internet than when they buy access from Wi-Fi hotspots."

While Speedus' plan for Wibiki is to implement location-based advertising, it's not clear how that will affect the Bryant Park deployment.

The Bryant Park hotspot was launched in June of 2002 by the Public Internet Project.

Speedus' press release is here.