Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Nov. 11, 2009

Google said late yesterday that it will provide free Wi-Fi Internet access in most major airports across the United States.

The decision constitutes a partnership with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and is to continue through January 15 of next year.

The new WiFi service will be available in 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte.

As a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely. As for the other airports, there's no word yet if the program will end after the Jan. 15, 2010 deadline or if it might be extended further.

Google says that various FAA estimates reveal that about 100 million people will pass through the participating airports between now and the end of the Holidays.

The move by Google comes as businesses such as hotels, restaurants and coffee shops try to meet customer demand for free Wi-Fi access. Boingo, which will power most of the Wi-Fi networks under Google's initiative, also released an announcement of a new program to offer sponsored access Wi-Fi in airports.

According to a press release from Boingo the new WiFi service presents a channel for brand owners to engage the hard-to-reach business professional in a captive environment by subsidizing complimentary Wi-Fi sessions in exchange for interacting directly with their brand.

U.S. travelers using the service will have the option to make a donation to Engineers Without Borders, or to the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

Google says it 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.

Boingo added that the campaigns typically offer travelers 15 to 20 minutes of complimentary Internet access in exchange for watching a 30-second video where the user is engaged directly with the brand.

Other opportunities to engage business people include lead generation, product and service trials, social media applications, location-based searches, customer surveys and downloadable content.

There was no word from Boingo or Google before press time as to whether Google's free holiday service would employ the sponsored access model.

Wireless industry observers say there will be more airports that will probably make the service permanent if other advertisers come in to share the cost and the revenue it will generate.

It will be interesting to see if that will happen, and to find out who those advertisers might be.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: Google.