The wireless Internet craze recently taking over businesses is making its way into major colleges and universities around the Boston area.

Boston University currently offers wireless access to its network in certain locations, including the Mugar Memorial Library, the Science and Engineering Library, the West Campus Dining Facility, the Pappas Law Library and many other parts of the School of Law. BU hopes to increase the wireless technology to more of the campus as wireless popularity grows.

“Ideally we’d love to do that,” said Michael Krugman, executive director of Information Technology at BU. “Wireless access provides students with important communications resources on campus and throughout the world.”

BU offers wireless Internet through the Cisco system, which is WiFi compatible. WiFi is the transmission standard for wireless access, and almost all carriers of wireless access use this system.

Krugman said it would be convenient to have wireless access throughout the campus though there are some difficulties in achieving campus-wide access.

“We are a larger school,” he said. “It would be costly to provide for campus wide wireless access.”

He also added that most schools currently providing wireless access for their entire campuses are “generally pretty small.”

One such school, Framingham State College, recently began plans to make their entire campus wireless and require all new students to have laptops by 2005. FSC has been working with the laptops on a limited basis since 1998, with 500 to 600 on campus last fall, according to Peter Chisholm, assistant to the FSC president.

This fall, however, all new students at FSC were required to purchase a specific Gateway model laptop while receiving a $500 discount through the school.

With the increase of undergraduate enrollment, there comes the need for space. FSC’s wireless Internet provided the college a way to turn every classroom into a computer lab.

“Trying to make classrooms into computer labs would have been expensive. [The wireless Internet] saves the college a tremendous amount of money, and cuts down on the space we’d be losing,” said Chisholm.

Lindsay Dumont, a sophomore at FSC majoring in communication arts, personally uses the wireless Internet in a class she is taking this semester. She said the laptop is an integrated learning tool in her visual communications class.

“It’s not that you have to get a laptop, but most classes are integrating them,” Dumont said.

FSC provided her laptop for her class, however, she is required to return it at the end of the semester.

Wireless Internet is not just exploding on campuses. The service is becoming popular among businesses as well, in efforts to attract new clientele and to provide a new service for existing customers.

Neila Hingorani, general manager of Trident Cafe and Booksellers and the Bodhi Cafe on Newbury Street, added wireless Internet service for their company around April.

“[Wireless Internet] definitely made an impact on my business,” Hingorani said. “I have DSL at home, and I come out here to do my work.”

Installing this service for her customers was not a difficult choice to make, and the pros outweighed the cons, Hingorani said.

“The market is online,” she said.

Hingorani also noted the simplicity of installing and using wireless Internet.

“I’ve watched people who aren’t too computer savvy set it up,” she said. “It’s so easy to install, and they are up in minutes.”

She noted a person could purchase a wireless Internet card, come down the street for a cup of coffee and be online by the time the person is done.

Wireless access cards search for a signal once they are plugged in. The card finds the nearest network, making it easy for the patron to be up and running in no time.

Starbucks Coffee also recently began providing its customers with wireless Internet access at some of its stores. However, on a busy Monday night at the store on Newbury Street, none of the patrons doing work were using the Internet access, and only one person in the store even had a laptop.

Alice Gruber, a senior at Bentley College working on her laptop at Starbucks, said she was not even aware the store offered wireless Internet. In the future, Gruber expects she will take advantage of wireless Internet access once she “figures out how to use it.”

Starbucks and T-Mobile have teamed up to install wireless access in 2,000 stores by the end of next year, according to a press release from Starbucks.

Starbucks, unlike Trident, requires its patrons to pay for the service. In order to access the Internet in Starbucks, the customer must first open an account through T-Mobile’s website. Prices vary, and a user can choose from plans which include unlimited use of the wireless network or a plan in which you “pay-as-you-go,” according to T-Mobile’s website.

Unlimited access for any metro area is $29.99 a month, while the unlimited nationwide access is $49.99 a month. If unlimited does not fit your access needs, you can also prepay 120 minutes for $20, or 300 minutes for $50. The “pay-as-you-go” plan includes only 15 minutes to start, with a fee of $0.25 for each additional minute.

This fee, however, is in addition to the cost of the wireless access card, necessary to access any wireless network, regardless of location.

Many companies now offer wireless Internet cards either already integrated into their systems or available for purchase separately.

Best Buy offers name brand wireless cards, such as Belkin and D-Link, for moderate prices, ranging from $59 to $99.50.

Companies like Dell also offer wireless access cards with or without the purchase of a notebook. Dell offers both an internal and an external wireless card for $99 and $69 respectively.

At BU, University Computers sells access cards at a slightly higher price. Prices ranged from $99 to $139 for the cards. Krugman said if students want to assure their card is compatible, they should purchase from University Computers, noting that any WiFi compatible card would work.

While more and more colleges and businesses are turning to wireless Internet, the consumer market remains small. The general public is slowly adapting to this new trend, hoping someday to turn their personal computers into their next cell phone.