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Google Gives the Gift of Free Airport Wi-Fi
itwbennett writes "Google is giving you something to be thankful for as you travel this holiday season. The company announced today that it is offering free Wi-Fi at 47 airports across the US between now and January 15. If you haven't booked your flights yet, you want to factor this into your plans. Here's a list of the 47 airports, which cover about 35% of all US passengers, according to Google. The Burbank and Seattle airports will continue to offer the free Google Wi-Fi indefinitely." The HuffPo notes another altruistic note in Google's gesture: "As another way to pass on the spirit of the season, once they log on to networks in any of the participating airports, travelers will have the option [of making] a donation to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation, or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google will match the donations made across all the networks up to $250,000, and the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice."
Sounds like Microsoft was doing this already to promote Bing, and that they've snagged O'Hare.
I'm curious tho - if they're picking up the tab for Boingo and so forth, are they also picking up the user registration information?
Portland, OR is not on the list...but then that's probably because travelers through PDX already enjoy free wi-fi courtesy of the Port of Portland and have for several years now. Now tell me again why other airports don't extend this courtesy already?
From TFA:
In total, the gift will include 47 airports that together handle over 500 million passengers each year, or about 35% of the total number of annual passengers in the U.S. In October, Google and Virgin America announced that, during this same period, all passengers on Virgin America will have free in-flight Wi-Fi. Five of the airports participating in the program are also Virgin America destinations: Boston, Seattle, Las Vegas, San Diego and Virgin America's newest destination launching November 18, Fort Lauderdale.
What would be really awesome is free wi-fi on aircraft. Although I'd trade that for power in a heartbeat.
This is already being offered on some planes - AA, Delta, Virgin American, and Airtran all offer Gogo Inflight Internet. It's surprisingly similar in price to internet at airports, but I doubt that it offers anything particularly speedy.
This is a nice gesture of goodwill from Google... I wonder how much it costs.
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For the "busiest airport in the world" they sure do drop the ball with little things like this. No doubt selling people $10 a day passes is too profitable to stop doing.
Is this a surprise? None of the nation's biggest airports are on there because they're all locked into various Wi-Fi carriers like Boingo that charge $7-10 for a day pass.
Sometimes we need a "-1 Drunk" mod.
Has been for a while now.
er, that's its nickname.
I think someone has to whoosh me now for obviously falling for the troll bait... :(
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...