Those in the know call it "wi-fi" -- short for wireless fidelity. These wireless networks are used by businesses and homes for the sake of cost and convenience. Instead of using wires to connect computers to a network, they use radio waves -- letting you roam as far as the signal reaches.

That freedom from a hardwire connection is sparking a digital revolution. "Scholars say the Internet wants to be free. We're just putting a wireless extension on that," says Nigel Ballard of Personal Telco.

Thanks to Ballard and Personal Telco, wi-fi is popping up in coffee houses, college campuses, hotels and even in your own neighborhood. If you have a laptop you can log anywhere where you can find an open network -- that's pretty much all of downtown Portland.

Personal Telco is made up of ordinary people who decided to share their home networks, creating a web of free access points, or nodes, all over the city. Their most popular node is the one that floods Pioneer Courthouse Square with wi-fi.

Jim Lacy uses Personal Telco to check his e-mail and surf the net, whenever he's away from his home connection. "This is incredible. It's fast, it's free -- in Pioneer Square. You can have coffee -- it's great. You just need to buy a standard wi-fi card. They range from 40 bucks to about 110," says Lacy of the ease of wi-fi.

In the past year and a half, wi-fi had gone from a very expensive item to the kind of thing you can walk into a computer store and turn your house into a wireless domain for less than $200. You can install a wireless network, or LAN in your house, and you can run every computer in your house off a single modem. But, those radio waves don't stop where there's a wall, or a property line. A node can send out wi-fi to computers all over a neighborhood.

Now, if you're thinking of sharing your home wireless connection with the world -- a word of warning. Some Internet service providers do not approve of this, and could shut your account down. So be sure to check with them before you open your own node.

If you're interested in learning more about wi-fi, Personal Telco is always looking for new members, to host nodes or just to use their free service. They have some very good information on their website -- whether you're a wireless newbie or more techno-savy.

Whatever your take is on wi-fi and how it should be used, one thing is for certain -- it's not going away. It's really something that is coming. "It's the wave of the future, and unless commerce gets in the way and tries to put fees on it, I think we've really got a great service, and we're blessed to have it here in Portland," says Ballard.