Net Results:  A few weeks ago, I wrote about wireless internet access at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports - a service that was free during the six months of the European presidency.

Now, free wireless access from Aer Rianta and some telecommunications partners has gone the way of noisy Euro travelcades and the sight of Euro ministers puffing away outside our smoking-prohibited public buildings.

Even though I travel regularly through Dublin airport, I only learned of the free access in its final weeks. I only got to use it once, but it was a pure pleasure to use up my dull waiting-for- a-flight time sending a few emails and doing some net browsing.

A paid-for service is already available in the Aer Lingus business lounge, and a paid-for service will soon be available throughout the terminal, according to Aer Rianta.

However, getting online in such a way is still startlingly expensive. Even though some operators have recently announced reductions in tariffs for using wireless access 'hot spots', costs are still too high for any but business travellers and manic net users.

When I am catching a flight, I fall somewhere in between those two designations, yet using a hot spot remains uncompelling to me - I don't need access that badly, and not at that cost.

One of my points in writing the original piece was to note how oddly tentative such services are anyway, whether offered by telecoms providers directly, or from hotels, stations, airports and so on.

In places throughout the country where wireless access is available through a hot spot, signs advertising the service tend to be so discreet that I almost never notice them, even though I am in places, such as train stations, where I know such services are on offer.

It's as if to use such services you have to be a member of some secret club - no normal people allowed. It's as if the providers think users will automatically feel in their bones that wireless access is available from this chosen spot, or their spider sense will tingle.

At best, this isn't great marketing. At worst, this isn't marketing at all, as if wireless is only an afterthought for ultrageeks who will know of the service anyway.

Take the Aer Rianta Anna Livia lounge at Dublin Airport. After I wrote my last piece on wireless, I received a nice letter from Aer Rianta pointing out that it offers free wireless access to patrons of the Aer Rianta lounge. What?! This is a fantastic offering for fliers who need to get online for a while and would also like to avail of a lounge but either don't have airline lounge access or are flying on an airline other than the ones they have lounge access cards for.

You've probably seen the posters for the lounge as you queue to go through security - for €20, you get three hours' access to the lounge, which includes the usual amenities of free drinks and snacks and a bit of quiet space, which at this time of year can be especially welcome, with grumpy holiday crowds, irritable business flyers and weeping children.

What isn't highlighted is that you also get free wireless broadband access for those three hours, as well as free use of a business room that also has PCs with internet access (in case you are so behind the times that your laptop is not yet "unwired", as Intel terms it). Going by the tariffs for hotspot use elsewhere, that's a real bargain - though Esat, which supplies access at Dublin Airport, recently substantially reduced its charges for hotspot use: a one-hour voucher is still €10, and they're not giving you a glass of wine and some munchies thrown into the bargain (that said, a day voucher is €15, and a 30-day voucher is €60).

The lounge has also been given a makeover, and Aer Rianta has given the whole service some mild publicity. But for heaven's sakes - why not shout out to the world about the free wireless access? That has got to be extremely attractive, especially to the business traveller.

What is it about wireless that makes people think it is just a quiet bonus rather than a major selling point in its own right?

That's why I'd like to see Aer Lingus offer free wireless in its business lounges.

As a regular business flier, I'd much rather have that access then the free papers, the cheese and crackers, the chocolate Kimberleys, and the bar service (I know, steady on, some of you will be saying).

I'm sure that for many travellers, the Aer Rianta offering would be pretty compelling - if they would only advertise it a bit more prominently so travellers actually know the wireless service is there.