Oneder LLC is also selling WiFi in areas that don't get much high-speed access. The Baltimore firm uses high-powered antennas to broadcast wireless Internet connections throughout residential buildings, retirement homes and, more recently, in the Baltimore City Fire Department.

"We're teetering on the edge of profitability," said the company's president, Keith Walter. Breaking even would be a milestone for the year-old firm.

Several other firms never made it that far. Wireless communications -- not just WiFi, but in general -- has turned out to be a tar pit for many start-ups.

"Companies like MobileStar and Metricom went out of business for a reason -- because the market was not large enough for those networks to be profitable," said Jane Zweig, chief executive of the Shosteck Group, a Wheaton-based market-research firm. "Those reasons still exist."

It's unclear how many laptop users want to use the service and would be willing to pay for it, Zweig said. "The question is not: Will people use it? It is: Is that market large enough to make business sense?"

In February, New York-based Joltage Networks shut its doors because it didn't attract enough users. Earlier this month, T-Mobile, the company responsible for installing wireless service in Starbucks stores, slashed its prices from 25 cents to 10 cents per minute, an indication that usage hasn't taken off as quickly as anticipated.

One reason might be the many locations that, like Starbucks competitors Cyberstop and Murky Coffee, offer WiFi free.

Cho, the owner of Murky Coffee, said he never considered charging for WiFi. He said he recoups the $70-a-month cost through coffee and sandwich sales.

"What this has been able to do is bring in people in the evening, and they buy a cup of coffee," Cho said. "I figure, if you're savvy enough to use it, then you're probably savvy enough to . . . find a different connection for free."

Also, he added, "it helps the image of our shop as a forward-thinking business."

Some WiFi access comes from simple idealism. A few blocks in downtown Bethesda have free WiFi courtesy of Tangerine Unwired, a Bethesda consulting business. Co-founder Philip Leif Bjerknes, an 18-year-old student at the University of Maryland, said there ought to be more free community WiFi services like his in the area."I was on Market Street in downtown San Francisco and there were seven different networks open," he said. "In D.C., I have yet to stumble across any public access networks."

Slater, a database administrator who likes to use the free Internet connection at Cyberstop Cafe, offered his own insight into the for-pay wireless business: "I think there are so many other monthly costs you pay for, I feel like it should be free. That's part of the Internet culture: We're accustomed to wanting things for free."