Comprehensive Airport Wi-Fi Guide

An anonymous reader writes, "Travelpost has a new guide to Wi-Fi in 141 U.S. airports. The chart includes pricing information and multiple service provider info for many of the airports — something you rarely see. A good, comprehensive resource for travelers who are constantly online."

Comments

Re:How is the list done?

[CRCulver]

If Panera can give it away for free, don't lie through your teeth and tell me it costs $10 for 24/hr access at O'Hare, one of the busiest airports in the world.

Not only is access ridiculously expensive at O'Hare, but it seems impossible to get close enough to the access point for nice and steady access. One time while waiting for a flight, I wandered all over the place with my laptop, and never got a connection quality higher than 20/94.

There's a bunch missing....

[An Ominous Cow Erred]

Many airports with a Starbucks have T-Mobile Hotspot access points, for some reason they're not listed.

For instance, at SJC (San Jose/Mineta) in Terminal C you can use T-Mobile throughout most of the pre-security areas since there is a big open Starbucks right in the middle.

I think this also goes for airports with integral FedEx/Kinkos locations.

The Atlanta column

[ottffssent]

Their table doesn't seem to include some important information. For example, is the wifi run by idiots (*cauatlantagh*) and blocks only outgoing traffic to port 80?

If the Anchorage AK airport can give away free wifi (and you know Ted Stevens personally trucked all those bits up to the frigid north), I'm sure as hell not paying some git $10 a day for it. Not when (s)he can't be bothered to block IMAP and SSH. HINT: If I don't even /notice/ you're trying to get me to pay for access until I've been using it for 20 minutes, you're doing something wrong.

Re:The Atlanta column

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, I'm one of the developers for the company who provides the Wifi service to the Atlanta aiport. As much as I'd like to take the bait on your comment about the incompetency of the department that runs the aiport, I'll refrain from that.

The part about only port 80 being blocked was, as I understood it, intentional and requested by the airport. They only want HTTP-type traffic blocked, and are fine with letting others check their email, etc. Yes, it allows people to proxy their connection on nonstandard ports, tunnel through SSH, or do other tricks, but that's an exceedingly small part of the customer base.

Additionally, charging for Internet access at the airport is a pretty damned ingenious business model. Many of those flying are business travelers who are authorized to expense business costs, like Wifi access. It doesn't come out of their pocket, and they "need" Internet access, so they're more than willing to charge it to the company. Plus, we automatically detect those using SmartClients like Boingo, so the airport gets a royalty from them. This lets users who already pay for service through one of those providers to get Wifi at yet another access point, while the airport can charge royalties.

Comprehensive?

[foo12]

I'd hardly call the list comprehensive --- it seems to only list the companies which the airports have contracted to provide wireless. There's a lot it doesn't list. Another poster already mentioned T-Mobile near Starbucks but the list doesn't mention, for example, that most of Terminal 1 at ORD is blanketed by T-Mobile coverage thanks to their partnership with United's Red Carpet Club. Or that in many airports it's possible to get a free wifi signal from Continental's lounges.

Re:How is the list done?

[tdvaughan]

Price doesn't matter with a little know-how. NSTX will break through most captive portals by tunnelling IP over DNS.

I've gone to Verizon Wireless's Broadband card.

[CFD339]

If you travel enough to need this guide, you don't want just a connection in airports. You want it in taxis, hotel lobbies, customer sites that don't allow network use for external people, restaurants, malls, and parks.

I also want it at soccer practice fields where I'm waiting for my kids, as with Karate dojos and the the like.

Finally, I don't want to have to hunt down and sign up for multiple providers -- many of whom I'm very unsure about. I've seen crackers at airports with fake airport wifi sites set up.

It's not terribly cheap -- but compared to multiple pay as you go places it it's not bad. Practical speed is about 800k/sec download and way less upload (60k or so) which is exagerated but typical consumer bandwidth black hole hell. Not good for file sharing up loads, but that's not what I use it for.

Most important -- it is reasonably secure (at least I know where I'm calling), reasonably fast, and available most places now (though there are some big holes that piss me off, like MAINE.)

Re:Not completely accurate

[Bucc5062]

That's great to know. Have you told the guide people yet?

From their site:

Methodology The information in this chart was collected and compiled by TravelPost.com's editorial team. All information was accurate at time of publication, but providers and airports may change their pricing at any time. Pricing and coverage area information presented here was obtained from the service providers' web sites, supplied by the service providers' official representatives or confirmed directly with airport personnel. This chart will be updated periodically to maintain accuracy. Please send us any updates, corrections or additional information.

Thus their reference to "guide" and not "Perfect list of costs". tell them http://www.travelpost.com/contact.aspx so they can check out the information, change the guide, and improve the service. If you don't bother to let them know please stop tossing comments "not completely accurate". Perhaps a more helpful approach would be a titled "Hey guys, SNA needs to be updated, $$$$" or something to help make a better product.

guide is wrong

[minus_273]

I just looked at logan airport in boston and they say verizon at 7.95/day when in reality it is comcast and free (guess how i am posting this)...

iPass

[necro81]

Thankfully, my company outfits its laptops with iPass Connect, which gets me access to just about any fee-for-service aiport hotspot in the U.S., and quite a few other locations, too. This has been particularly useful in airports: let iPass find the network and log on, fire up the VPN, and let my company pick up the tab. Nevermind that most of what I then do with the connection is random surfing.

I'll also note that my dinky local airport, which has all of four gates, has free wifi access. Unfortunately, it didn't make the list for some reason.