Maybe it's the rain that encouraged Seattle's residents to stay indoors, sipping their lattes and surfing the Web wirelessly, that made the northwest city this year's most 'unwired' city, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
The study, sponsored by Intel Corp., showed that Seattle had more places for its residents to connect to the Internet via wireless, or Wi-Fi, hot spots than any other U.S. city.
Coffee-sipping laptop users are a common sight in Seattle, Washington, the birthplace of Starbucks Corp. that also has software giant Microsoft Corp. in the nearby suburb of Redmond.
Second on the list was San Francisco's metropolitan area, followed by Austin, Texas. Fourth was another northwestern city, Portland, Oregon, and fifth was Toledo, Ohio.
The survey for 2005's "Most Unwired Cities" was based on the number of access points at commercial, public, airport, and other locations among the top 100 metropolitan areas in the United States.
Following is a complete list of the top ten unwired places in the United States:
- Seattle, Washington
- San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland, California
- Austin, Texas
- Portland, Oregon-Vancouver, Washington
- Toledo, Ohio
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Denver, Colorado
- Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
- Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
- Orange County, California
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.
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