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Portland Named 'Hottest' Spot

Intel's Most Unwired Cities survey ranks U.S. cities by the number of wireless hot spots the cities have.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The most unwired city in America is ... Portland, Ore.

The Portland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) ranks as the top market for wireless Internet accessibility, according to Intel's Most Unwired Cities survey released last week.

The region's growing number of hot spots allowed Portland to outpace bigger cities, such as Los Angeles (No. 13) and New York (No. 23), Intel's study said.

Following Portland on the top 10 unwired MSA list are San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Seattle; Orange County, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Denver; Ventura, Calif.; and Boston.

The West leads all other regions with eight metropolitan areas in the top 10. A complete list of the Most Unwired Cities is online. Intel said its survey was conducted by Bert Sperling, a research analyst known for compiling Money magazine's annual "Best Places to Live" feature.

More than 3,700 hotspots are currently active in the United States, Intel said, appearing in locations such as a barbershop on Long Island, a chowder house in Seattle, a pub in California's Lake Tahoe and a pool hall on Maui.

In addition, companies such as Starwood Hotels, Marriott International and Connexion by Boeing are enabling customers to enjoy an unwired mobile computing experience while sitting in a hotel lobby or while flying at 30,000 feet.

"WiFi is the most revolutionary technology to hit the computing world since the arrival of the Internet browser in the early 1990s," said Sean Maloney, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Communications Group. "WiFi promises to do for computing what cell phones did for voice communication."

Intel