According to Nodeb.com, a website that has compiled a list of free and commercial WiFi nodes around the world, there are currently over 13,000 wireless network nodes providing Internet access, and the number is growing with each passing day. According to some, this is further evidence that people will do whatever they can to get unrestricted wireless access to the Internet without going through a traditional network provider. However, as you would expect, the big providers (Verizon, AT&T Wireless, etc.) say these nodes are unsecured and users are open to attack.

Duane Groth, a systems and network administrator in Sydney, Australia, said he created Nodedb.com two years ago as "a mapping project to help those in Sydney find out where nodes are located. Then other people said I should expand to cover this city or that."

Since the project is voluntary, the site lists only nodes that individuals or companies have submitted to Nodedb.com. But it provides a glimpse of the rapid growth in Wi-Fi nodes concentrated in 712 urban areas around the world.

At the bottom of each Web page at Nodedb.com are listed the number of new nodes and the names of cities where they are concentrated.

Groth said he has seen as many as 100 new nodes listed worldwide in a single day.

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The movement has great appeal for Third World countries with little telecom infrastructure. The challenge is that installing this equipment requires a line of site connection from the relay signal. And it needs to be maintained with the same care and savvy of, say, your family automobile.

What do the telecommunications companies say about this movement?

They appear unfazed.

A spokesman for Verizon seemed unaware of the movement and stressed that Verizon's own wireless service, EvDo, is coming out next year when it "will be everywhere."

A spokesman for AT&T Wireless did not comment directly about the proliferation of free community wireless networks except to doubt the security of the service.

In fact, security can be a concern, said Tim Pozar, a founder of Bay Area Research Wireless Network. Wireless communications are prone to being tapped or spied upon, he said. Pozar makes sure he uses secure protocols or encryption tools.