SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - The Coffee Garden, a trendy Salt Lake City-based coffee shop, is preparing to serve its customers a lot more than cappuccino. The Coffee Garden is launching HOTSPOTZZ high-speed wireless Internet service for its largely tech-savvy clientele. Starting this week, Coffee Garden's customers will be able to sip their coffee while surfing the 'Net, checking e-mail or working on projects through their company's Virtual Private Network (VPN).

The Coffee Garden has partnered with HOTSPOTZZ, one of the nation's largest providers of wireless "hot spots" based in Salt Lake City, to offer high-speed wireless access to its 'Net thirsty customers. HOTSPOTZZ utilizes 802.11b technology backed by high-speed broadband Internet access to connect customers to the Internet. Customers use Wi-Fi-enabled laptops and other mobile devices to connect to the Internet anywhere within the coverage area of the access point.

"The Coffee Garden is an ideal place to launch high-speed wireless Internet," said Henry Smith, HOTSPOTZZ CEO. "Their customers are very tech-savvy and a large percentage already bring their laptops to the Coffee Garden."

The fee for using Coffee Garden's HOTSPOTZZ varies between different plans: from approximately $2.95 for a one-hour scratch card to a pay-as-you-go service to $19.95 per month for unlimited national usage use.

"We are thrilled to offer our valued customers wireless Internet access," said Alan Hebertson, Coffee Garden's owner. "Many of our customers have asked for wireless Internet access in the past, so I'm pleased to make wireless a reality for Coffee Garden."

The Wi-Fi market is rapidly expanding and becoming mainstream. According to Gartner, consumers and businesses are expected to spend $1.7 billion on Wi-Fi equipment. By 2006, there are expected to be 89,000 public Wi-Fi network access points and more than 99 million Wi-Fi users worldwide, Gartner says. According to "The Wireless LAN Report" by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Equity Research, "We believe the industry is currently reaching a major inflection point for widespread adoption, which leads us to leave this overall message to service providers and major communications OEMs - 802.11b is a disruptive technology. Get on the train, or get hit by the train."

You can tell if local coffee shops, hotels or restaurants offer HOTSPOTZZ high-speed wireless Internet access by looking for the red, white and blue HOTSPOTZZ window sign near location entrances or by visiting the HOTSPOTZZ Web site at www.hotspotzz.com. Check out Coffee Garden's wireless offering and get a map to their location by visiting www.hotspotzz.com and selecting "Locations". Several Salt Lake City hotels, restaurants and coffee shops will soon offer HOTSPOTZZ technology.