Travellers to and from Bermuda with laptops or personal digital assistants can now get online with their own devices while they wait for departing flights. This service ? which will be an earner for Government ? is provided through ?Wi-Fi hot spots? at the Bermuda International Airport for those with systems enabled for use of this kind of technology.

The news was revealed yesterday in a Press statement from the US software company, Single Digits?, and local IT company Gateway Systems after the system was launched in mid-August.

Single Digits? said so far about 400 users have taken advantage of the new service, paying for it through a secure credit card authentication system.

The price for using the service was not known yesterday as information on the new feature for travellers was not being released by Government until today.

Gateway Systems managing director John Kyle said in the Press statement: ?The Bermuda Airport is a perfect venue for hotspot services, as more business and now leisure travellers are carrying laptops and PDAs equipped with wireless chipsets and seeking connectivity areas to utilise them in.?

Single Digits? said its hotspot solution enables the Airport to easily and cost-effectively offer a new Wi-Fi-based revenue stream targeted at servicing leisure and business travellers in transit through the Bermuda Airport.

The new hotspot solution automatically performs all user authentications and billing procedures, runs as a separate network from the Airport?s existing systems and is hosted within Single Digits? network operations centre.

To offer the service, the Airport reportedly leases a hotspot software license from Single Digits? and gets a revenue check at the end of each month based on user activity. The launch of the service puts Bermuda International Airport as one of those following the growing trend for airports around the world to offer travellers the opportunity to wirelessly access the Internet with their own technology while waiting for flights.