Thanksgiving Travelers Will Have Free WIFI at Many Airports
That’s right folks. We just got this on the Macworld website.
Many of you know (and are beginning to realize) that the Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest travel time of the year. Things get hectic in Terminal 2 at O’hare and anywhere in LAX. The business travel has to get to google to complete that last PowerPoint, and the college student returning home needs to finish some last minute assignment. Why pay $10 for 20 minutes (or 24 hours, it all depends where you are) of boingo or whatever monopolistic ISP in that hot spot you’re calling home for the next twelve hours.
This holiday season, Google is offering free WiFi at 47 participating airports, from now through January 15th, 2010. According to the FAQ, Google’s doing this “to make the holiday travel crush a little easier.” To that end, the company is working with Boingo, Advanced Wireless Group, Time Warner Cable, Electronic Media Systems, Lilypad, and other airport Wi-Fi providers to foot the bill for airport travelers. The search giant also struck a similar deal earlier this year with airline Virgin America to provide free Wi-Fi on its flights.
And Google’s holiday spirit doesn’t stop with the free Wi-Fi. The company will also prompt folks using the gratis Internet connection to make donations (via Google Checkout, of course) to one of several non-profits—and will match the donations to boot (up to a maximum of $250,000). You’re not required to make a donation to use the free Wi-Fi, but doing so just might help you feel a bit more jolly.
