11 Nov 09 Google Christmas Gift: Free WIFI to Holiday Travelers

googlewifi2 This Christmas season Google will be offering free WIFI at select airports across the United States. While my home base- San Diego airport has free WIFI already, it is quite slow! I’m excited to try out Google’s new offering and see how the results turn out. I’m guessing this will be a big hit for everyone with a laptop, wifi-enabled mobile phone, or net-book users. There are currently 47 airports participating in the Google Free WIFI Christmas Gift and they can be viewed here: http://www.freeholidaywifi.com/

From a business perspective, I believe it makes sense for Google (or any provider) to offer Free WIFI or WIFI paid by sponsorship/advertising year-round. How things are now, we show up two hours early to a flight and sit around bored, pretending to read a book, or jamming out to our iphone. We scroll through our Microsoft Outlook inbox and attempt to find things to do. But with no live internet connection, it’s tough! Being connected at a high-speed at the airport will be a nice step for business productivity, consumer efficiency, and in general, the traveler’s happiness and morale. I’m going to estimate that by Spring of 2010, most airports and airplanes offer free WIFI. Currently Virgin and Delta Airlines are offering Free WIFI on a temporary basis, but I believe it will become fully active permanently. There has got to be a way for these companies to provide free WIFI to the end user and still make it worthwhile for them. I’m thinking a sponsorship or advertising model will suffice. Just having ‘Free WIFI powered by Google’ signs at an airport should be enough payback to them for the costs of free WIFI.

I’d be interested to hear my reader’s thoughts on this? What do you think about this whole Free WIFI vs. Paid WIFI battle that is going on now at airports, coffee shops, and public access points across the world? Do you have a proposed solution?

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