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."

heh

[stoolpigeon (454276)]

Of the two I'll definitely be in during the time frame - the one that already had free wi-fi ( Orlando ) is on the list. The other, the busiest airport in the country, didn't have free wi-fi before and is not on the list. The Sanford/Orlando airport also has free wi-fi but last time I was there it would only let me access Google sites. It was odd but I could get to Google Docs so I didn't care too much.

What would be really awesome is free wi-fi on aircraft. Although I'd trade that for power in a

Keep Reading. Free Wifi on Virgin America.

[im_thatoneguy (819432)]

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.

Re:heh

[mrbene (1380531)]

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 [gogoinflight.com]. It's surprisingly similar in price to internet at airports, but I doubt that it offers anything particularly speedy.

Re:

[ncc74656 (45571)]

The last thing I want to do while on a plane is hear the person beside me yakking away.

VoIP apps are usually blocked for that reason (among others...they might want to bend you over on airphone service, but this is one case where a restriction works out well for everybody).

Re:heh

[moosesocks (264553)]

If a plane can be brought down by a weak 2.4Ghz transmission, we have other *much* more serious issues to consider.

The planes should be tested against the most powerful transmission equipment that somebody could possibly smuggle on board the aircraft, not the other way around. RF shielding isn't exactly rocket science, and one would hope that any critical circuitry would already be shielded, given the crazy electromagnetic stuff that happens in the upper atmosphere where the planes happen to spend most of their time.

Re:Free inflight wifi on all the major carriers

[appleguru (1030562)]

If you're on a flight with gogo wireless, there are a bunch of promo codes for free internet..

FREEINTERNET should work until the end of the year..
DELTATRYGOGO should work on Delta flights
AATRYGOGO should work on American Airlines flights

Gogo is also running a promotion where you can get a code to give out to people and the person with the most people that use their code gets a few free sessions or something like that.

2287321623nca was the code they gave me; should be good for free in flight wifi until Janua

Re:

[ncc74656 (45571)]

I noticed that Las Vegas is also on the list, even though it's had free WiFi for probably at least a couple of years.

Re:

[postbigbang (761081)]

So is San Jose.

I guess they couldn't bribe ORD enough. Boingo still rules, if you want to call it that....

You see, whereas before you couldn't be tracked, Google (see google.com/dashboard) is an expert. The TSA needs experts.

No Ohare or any of the NY airports??

[thammoud (193905)]

Sucks for me.

Re:

[mrbene (1380531)]

MS already got O'Hare, so you'll need to do a search on Bing to get your free wifi there.

Re:No Ohare or any of the NY airports??

[T Murphy (1054674)]

Knowing how O'hare is on delays, they wouldn't get the wifi running until May, and even then you'd have a ping of 12s or so with a 20% chance of your connection being canceled altogether.

Copying MS?

[mrbene (1380531)]

Sounds like Microsoft was doing this already [venturebeat.com] 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?

Re:Copying MS?

[dgatwood (11270)]

Sadly, this is next to useless because it doesn't cover any of the airports you are likely to be flying through. None of the major airline hub cities except Las Vegas and Miami are included on the list. Not DFW, not Atlanta, not Denver, not LAX, not Salt Lake City, not Cincinnati, not Chicago, not JFK.

Unless you're a complete fool, you probably have a pretty good idea how early to get to the airport to fly, and for most of us, that means printing your boarding pass from home before you leave, and arriving an hour before the plane leaves. That gives you thirty minutes through security, ten minutes in the airport, and then you're gone. There's very little time to use Wi-Fi, though I suppose if my plane were delayed out of San Jose due to maintenance problems, it might be marginally useful.

Similarly, when you get to your destination, Wi-Fi is the last thing you're thinking about. You're making a beeline for the luggage conveyor (if you checked any), then a beeline for the taxi stand or the pickup area or the car rental place. So although it's nice in theory that I could get free Wi-Fi when I get to Nashville, the fact of the matter is that I won't use it there, either, nor on my return trip.

The one part of your trip that you're not in control over---the one part of your trip where you actually spend a significant amount of time sitting in the airport twiddling your thumbs---is that three or four hour layover. Statistically speaking, this is almost always going to be in Dallas/Fort-Worth, Atlanta, Chicago, LAX, or Denver---maybe Las Vegas if you are flying from somewhere in the western U.S. to somewhere else in the western U.S., but even then, you're much more likely to go through LAX.

So it's a nice idea in principal, but in practice, you'd have a hard time picking worse airports in terms of improving things for U.S. passengers. The airports listed are almost never used for connections except maybe puddle jumper biplanes out to Lexington, KY or something. I mean, I guess they could have picked Jackson, TN (MKL), Milan's Linate Airport (LIN), and Air Europa (UX) or something, but....

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[TerraFrost (611855)]

They are providing free wireless for at least one hub - a Continental Airlines hub - Houston Bush [wikipedia.org].

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[chebucto (992517)]

I usually arrive early (because of the unknowns - traffic, security, unknown unknowns) and end up waiting a while (baggage). I would (and do, at airports which already provide this (props to YHZ)) use wifi given the opportunity.

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[cashman73 (855518)]

What they're probably betting on is that more people will use this for non-PC devices, like iPhones and Blackberries with Wi-Fi capability, rather than people popping open their notebooks while waiting for flights. If you have your iPhone handy, it's easy enough to check a few emails quickly while waiting in line, as opposed to waiting for your computer to boot up and all that,...

Re:

[characterZer0 (138196)]

Obviously you live somewhere warm. Up north you show up to the airport an hour before your flight and wait three hours while they deice the planes.

PDX not on the list

[bobcat7677 (561727)]

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?

Re:

[BearRanger (945122)]

Several airports on the list also offer free wi-fi. (Charlotte, NC; Orlando, FL; and I think Pittsburgh, PA come to mind) I just assumed that in these airports Google is picking up the cost of providing the service for the duration of their promotion. But good on PDX to hold the line and stick to their principles. Having flown through there a lot myself I can say firsthand that it's a darned good airport.

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[sconeu (64226)]

I thought IAH (Houston/Bush) already had free WiFi. I seem to recall using it a few years back last time I had a connection there.

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[cashman73 (855518)]

I certainly hope this doesn't mean that, after the promotional period, the PIT airport will start charging for access. I like having free wi-fi while waiting for outbound flights here,... I fly to PHX a lot, too, and they have free wi-fi as well at Sky Harbor -- though they're not on the Google list.

The Reason Why? Money

[DesScorp (410532)]

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?

As someone that works at an airport (and provides free Wi-Fi), I'll tell you precisely why more don't offer it: money. I work at a smaller airport where the cost of providing the service is low, but at larger airports, the cost of bandwidth and hardware is significant. Pittsburgh and McCarran in Las Vegas offered it as an incentive to pull in fliers, but the cost issue is a double edged sword at airports. With the state of the air travel industry being so bad, not only do airports not want to foot the bill

Re:

[GIL_Dude (850471)]

Or, where they don't want to manage it themselves or deal with a subcontractor they are more than willing to sell the franchise rights to some other operator like a Boingo, etc. Less work for the airport - just money to receive.

Why is this news

[DeathOverlord3 (645635)]

I was just in the Incheon airport and not only do they have free wifi throughout the terminal, but many internet PCs freely available for anyone to use. I guess the real news here is that someone passed up on an opportunity to charge $2/hr or whatever for wifi in this country.

Re:

[shutdown -p now (807394)]

That is South Korea - a country where you can get a 100Mbps uncapped connection for $50 virtually everywhere. That free wifi costs them pennies, literally.

Then again, Incheon International airport is one of the most impressive ones that I've seen in many aspects.

Yay SJC! Too bad for SFO

[rsborg (111459)]

I'm pretty sure Ohare and NY airports aren't on this list because they're too big, or already have options (Someone mentioned that PDX has free wifi courtesy of the airport itself).

This is a nice gesture of goodwill from Google... I wonder how much it costs.

Re:

[arevos (659374)]

This is a nice gesture of goodwill from Google... I wonder how much it costs.

Goodwill? Well maybe, but I suspect that they'll also be storing all that lovely user data about people's surfing habits. Airports have a lot of different passengers going through each day, so they'd get a good cross-section of the population. Also, as network traffic on airport wifis is predominantly from personal laptops, perhaps there will be less clickbots/spambots to screw up Google's statistics. They could also tailor their advertisements more effectively, showing people ads for local businesses in an

Re:

[bwcbwc (601780)]

Don't think it's a question of just size. Google's got most of Florida, including Miami and Orlando. And US Air's hub in Charlotte. But no DFW, ORD, NYC, or any of the other big hubs. Still, they've got all three airports in my general area, so I'm covered for at least my outbound leg.

DFW Not on the List

[PHPNerd (1039992)]

Somehow freaking El Paso made it on the list, and TWO Houston airports....but not Dallas/Fort-Worth, which is easily the biggest airport in the state and the 4th busiest airport in the nation. What the crap, Google?

Maybe you should ask DFW

[Chris Daniel (807289)]

I would think the airports get a percentage of wifi access fees, or the entire fee if they run their own system (as opposed to bringing in a carrier like Boingo). Perhaps Google's offer (assuming it was made) wasn't a good fit for their budget.

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[blind biker (1066130)]

If you want to complain, how about no JFK?

The HuffPo?

[Morris Thorpe (762715)]

Today on SlaDo: Comments about the HuffPo report that The Goo giving free WiFi at the 'port.

Re:

[Yvan256 (722131)]

"The Goo"? 2D Boy [2dboy.com] might have a problem with that, sir.

Ah, yes, HuffPo

[93 Escort Wagon (326346)]

It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Let's all say it together - HuffPo. HuffPo.

Actually, I guess it doesn't really. What it DOES sound like is something that'd get a movie an X rating.

Re:

[bwcbwc (601780)]

No, it's the spoonerism of HuffPo that would give you the X rating...PuffHo?

So...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518)]

Did google find themselves in need of a representative sample of travellers' network activity? Or some general positive buzz?

To "the season"

[alexborges (313924)]

Fuck the season

Fuck the horse (or "raindear") it rode in on.

And fuck the "spirit" of whatever the hell makes you feel all twingly inside and more "giving"

You are either a good person or an asshole, regardless of the time of the year.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes we need a "-1 Drunk" mod.

Re:To "the season"

[DesScorp (410532)]

You are either a good person or an asshole, regardless of the time of the year.

So good of you to represent the assholes.

OMA always free

[JeffTL (667728)]

Eppley in Omaha (world's cleanest airport, or so says the urinal, and I've not seen a cleaner airport yet) always has free WiFi. I see that Microsoft has sponsored MDW and DEN, which would be of use to me had I not already taken care of all my immediate business there.

Picked 1 of 3

[timpdx (1473923)]

Chose LAX *bzzz* Chose Virgin *ding* Chose JFK *bzzz* one of three ain't bad, must have wifi at JFK to get some work done on my 5 hour layover to the UAE. Its New York, I don't expect them to "do free" and I will be stuck paying for that part. hey, will take the free in-flight wi-fi...

Imagine all the marketing info ....

[opypod (1169579)]

I guess google will be keeping track of what all those holiday shoppers/travelers are googling? This is so much better than doing marketing research the old way ... Not that I'm a skeptic ... but I believe there is an evil, ulterior motive.

YVR - it's already free!

[KPexEA (1030982)]

Has been for a while now.

Train stations

[tirerim (1108567)]

Great. Now how about some train stations to go with those airports? Boston South Station, New York Penn Station, Philadelphia 30th Street Station, and Washington Union Station would be a good start. Add Chicago Union Station and Los Angeles Union Station for those outside the Northeast Corridor.

If only they'd announced this sooner

[Chuck Chunder (21021)]

If you haven't booked your flights yet, you want to factor this into your plans.

Sure I've have a week in South Africa in the national parks and game reserves and another in a luxury resort in Indonesia but I'm tempted to chuck the whole thing in for some free wi-fi.

"Factor this into your plans?"

[geminidomino (614729)]

Okay, maybe I'm too old now and I need to turn in my geek card, but honestly...

Dec 24, 10:14 AM:
"Hey dad! I know I was going to fly out of Islip and save you driving into the city to drop me off, but I'm departing from La Guardia instead. They've got free wifi!"

Dec 24, 11:48 AM:
"WTB Run from Brookhaven to La Guardia. Paying well! Also, WTB Rectal Boot Retraction kit."

Re:

[vsage3 (718267)]

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.

Supply and demand works here

[by Anonymous Coward]

When Google and Microsoft give away free ad money to test their ad networks, they are effectively inflating the price of how much everyone pays for the ads.

Not really. They charge as much as you are willing to pay. The AdWords/AdSense prices are very low for well made ad campaigns for keywords with little competition but if you want to have the first ad when people search for generic, higly competed keyword (Like poker), you will have to pay like hell because so many others are also willing to pay for that place.

What google then does with the money only affects it's profit margins. It doesn't inflate the prices.

How's that for a reason not buy ads from them?

Regardless of what the company does, I will keep

Re:

[i_ate_god (899684)]

er, that's its nickname.

I think someone has to whoosh me now for obviously falling for the troll bait... :(

Re:

[Canazza (1428553)]

"Brangelina" sounds like some kind of Laxitive Fairy