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Free Wi-Fi Coming To Atlanta's Airport
stephendavion (2872091) writes 'Passengers can now access free Wi-Fi at the world's busiest airport. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has dropped its $5 fee to access Wi-Fi in its terminals. "Now, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and airport officials plan to celebrate the long-awaited arrival of the amenity at the airport Wednesday," reports Kelly Yamanouchi of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ... Interm airport manager Miguel Southwell tells Yamanouchi officials believe dropping the Wi-Fi charge will alleviate a "competitive disadvantage" for Hartsfield-Jackson.' I'm puzzled sometimes that so many airports do not yet offer free Wi-Fi, especially ones loaded with businesses (like Starbucks and McDonalds) that have made this a big draw in their non-airport locations. On the other hand, given a captive audience and the temptation for exclusive contracts, maybe I should be grateful that so many do have at least limited free coverage, and that the trend seems positive.
You are being tracked.
Those who keep good records used to get the $5 back from their boss, just charging it to the card they charge the rest of the trip expenses to. Who did this suck for? The kids who were traveling on vacation... yep, WiFi is the entertainment system that keeps you from getting bored at the airport.
I'm puzzled sometimes that so many airports do not yet offer free Wi-Fi, especially ones loaded with businesses (like Starbucks and McDonalds) that have made this a big draw in their non-airport locations.
The airport is already a big draw. Nobody is choosing an alternate mode of transportation of driving far out of their way so they can fly out of another airport just because the airport doesn't have free Wi-Fi. If you can afford to do that, you can afford a cellular hotspot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
First, in order for airport wi-fi to not-suck, you'll need a massive subnet with a TTL of no more than 30 minutes. Yes, I've been in airports where a /24 subnet was apparently just dandy...
Second, everyone who's in an airport seems to want to stream Netflix or something like that; I do hope that Netflix throws a peering widget their way, because the thousands of iPads in that airport will strain the pipe pretty efficiently.
Third, you're on a single collision domain, half-duplex, along with everyone else. 5GHz may help matters, but 2.4 will still be needed for compatibility, and if you're stuck on it, you'll probably get useful speed out of a dial-up optimized RDP session an an SSH window, but the only way regular web browsing is ever worth it is if you have some absurdly early flight (5AM takeoff or similar), at which point 'using my computer' plays second fiddle to the better activity: sleep.
Sorry, I've just never seen it worth it. I always load up my hard drive before I go, and I've never regretted it.
The airport: the worst place to be in the cloud.
Not last week when I was sitting there for 4 hours... I am betting my work phone Verizon LTE was faster than their wifi though... Gotta love tethering and making the company pay for it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It used to be that most airports paid for certain maintenance operations, in particular the cleaning crews, with the revenue from pay phones. That source seriously dried up about the same time that wifi demand rose, and managers saw charging for wifi as an obvious replacement for pay-phone revenue. Now, long term, as people come to regard wifi as a necessary utility like water or bathrooms, that idea is not sustainable. Also, the FCC helps the push toward free wifi by blocking airports managers' attempts to ban airlines and in-terminal concessionnaires from operating their wifi. (Boston fought the FCC over this for a long time.)
Given the layout of ATL, going from one concourse to another (especially if you go between a civilized airline and Delta) requires a trip to one people-mover that unnecesarily increases the distance. Perhaps they could take a lesson from somewhere like DFW and fix that.
If I want online access, my phone does it quite well.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You realize that there are private companies that collect *way* more information about you than the NSA does and they sell it to whomever wants to buy it.
Oh wait I forgot this is /.
Sorry move along...
Not to mention the fact that the Government is free to jail or kill you whenever it wants based on what you think and say.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Anyone who scratches their heads at the lack of free wifi in airports is obviously too young to remember pay toilets. Talk about a captive audience. But airports eventually moved away from those. Hopefully pay-wifi will disappear too.
Proverbs 21:19
I work for a hardware vendor (Fortinet) and we are currently selling our AP infrastructure like hotcakes when we partner with companies like Kiana. Imagine a WiFi sensor network that works like the ad sensors in Minority Report. So when you walk by a retailer using the free wifi and browsing we can inject an ad for a free smoothy or a discount beer (that is the evil side). The good side is that when you enter the airport we have you stored in the MAC database and we can see when you are checking in an in teh security line so if you are late for your flight they can have TSA hurry you along to get on your flight on time.
from my experience I've found San Jose airport has really good wifi. Free, easy to connect, and pretty fast too. Far superior to Google's wifi in Mountain View. And can view whatever websites you want. Frustrating other airports don't do the same (I have used paid services but they are terribly slow), it gets really dry waiting for connecting flights (but then there is the 20th century method of getting smarter by reading a book). Very tempting to get a Ubiquiti Bullet and high gain yagi aimed at SJC airport. But there's considerable distance and many buildings and trees in between, and of course not kosher with their User Agreement.
mfwright@batnet.com
As far as I remember KCI has always had free Internet wifi. Combined with the fact that we have Google Fiber, it feels like the rest of America is some third world country.
I think you mean MCI. KCI is the airport in Kon, Indonesia.
Recently, @ ORD in transit, I needed to use WiFi w/ my iPod to use my email to inform colleagues where I was. Google interpreted it as someone trying to break into my account, and forced me to change a password I've had for 10 years. Yahoo! too couldn't be accessed, since the WiFi there was open. They had a touchscreen somewhere, but that had a resistive screen, making it impossible to do any typing for long.
SJC and the much bigger PHX are the airports I frequent and both do a pretty good job. $5 may not be much to a business traveler, but in a few years we'll look back at it the same way we'd think of a $5 charge to turn the lights on.
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
Atlanta's new wifi install can handle 15,000 connected devices according to the specs they released. Just an FYI if in Atlanta and if you need faster service - Terminal A the Admirals Lounge has free wifi about 150ft out each way from it's entrance, fast enough for Netflix.
It's authoritarian fucks like you that are destroying this world. Outdoor smoking bans, despite mountains of evidence that second-hand cigarette smoke has no detectable effects outdoors. Your stated belief that smoking real tobacco should be outlawed. Talk of second-hand nicotine vapor effects. You're a fool of the most dangerous sort, the type that wants to impose his idiocy on the rest of us.
If you ask me, they should have a two door system for all self-righteous asshole lounges. That way people like you could be packed in, and both sets of doors locked. Fuck you and the smugness you rode in on.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.