Andrew Weinreich, Joltage Networks

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Twenty-something whiz-kid founds an Internet start-up, sells it for a mint at the peak of the dotcom boom, and resurfaces a few years later at the vanguard of the Wi-Fi explosion. If that sounds like Sky Dayton of EarthLink and Boingo Wireless fame, you're right — except the same description also applies to Andrew Weinreich, founder of Wi-Fi upstart Joltage Networks.

Weinreich finds the Dayton comparisons both flattering (“He's a much bigger name than I am”) and inevitable. “Wi-Fi is the Internet repeating itself — there are going to be lots of serial entrepreneurs in the space,” he said. “We just happen to be doing it now.”

Though Weinreich — who made his name as the founder and CEO of now-defunct Sixdegrees.com — is positioned alongside Dayton on the Wi-Fi forefront, Joltage and Boingo are hardly mirror images. True, both companies aim to build a nationwide wireless network of networks by connecting Wi-Fi-enabled coffee shops, airports, hotels and independent Wi-Fi users. What separates Joltage is its business model, which carries Dayton's concept a step further.

While others in the space target only owners of existing Wi-Fi hot spots, Joltage offers literally anyone the opportunity to become a wireless ISP, supplying free software to handle customer registration, billing and customer service. Joltage splits its net revenues 50/50 with each hot-spot owner, who also can earn referral fees by signing up other access points — and, in the process, expand Joltage's network.

As Wi-Fi winnows its way further into retail outlets, he envisions a spate of new applications, including numerous customer profiling and location-based services. “Joltage is not going to develop these applications itself — we're going to enable other people to develop them,” Weinreich said. “That model makes us unique.”