In this paper, we investigate efficient wireless data access algorithms in mobile hotspots. We introduce a proxy cache (PC) and propose PC-based poll-each-read (P-PER) and PC-based callback (P-CB) data access algorithms to reduce the transmission cost over wireless links in mobile hotspots. An analytical model is developed, and extensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the performance of P-PER and P-CB. It is shown that P-PER and P-CB can improve cache hit performance and significantly reduce transmission cost. A tradeoff between P-PER and P-CB suggests the need to use a hybrid proxy-based approach to attain optimal performance of wireless data access in mobile hotspots.