Google's free airport wifi a gift to holiday travelers...or?

I fly quite a bit and all

I fly quite a bit and all the airports I go to have free wifi already. Perhaps it's because I go to smaller airports where it's a lot simpler to setup (than say, trying to cover all of O'Hare)?

Seems to be a campaign on

Seems to be a campaign on the college student market. Lots of major college town airports: BOS, SCE, MSN, PIT, BUF, AUS, SMF, SAT, TOL.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years, lots of money strapped consumers(read: students) will be hitting the skies.

My .02

This is a joke, right.

Fort Myers (RSW) wifi has always been free. I recall Sacramento is free also. But the airports with outrageous fees (Atlanta and San Francisco) are not on the list.

Is this a hoax?

Not listed

I wonder how the airports were chosen ? The ones I use, Dallas and Detroit, aren't included. They don't have free wireless now either.

get real

Have you ever set up a wireless network other than putting a netgear wifi router in your house?

I have never installed wireless in an airport but have in other industrial environments. Commercial grade access points are not $100 a pop. Try at least $400 to $500 each for each AP. Add an antenna $200 to $300 each for each AP. If you are not powering them with PoE then you will need an AC outlet at each AP so plan on having to pay an electrician to run lots of conduit and copper for your power drops. If you are using PoE then plan on buying PoE switches. Regardless, find powered locations for spacing your switches out to be able to feed your network and power within the length limitations of from your ethernet switches Cat 5/6 cable that you will have to run to each AP.

While you are at it, don't forget to do site surveys to determine where and how many APs you will need to provide coverage. Also don't forget to factor in for fiber to connect at least some of your network together since airport terminals are usually huge and will require it.
Oh, and don't forget to factor in any FAA regulations that surely will require that no excessive signal makes it's way out of the building that could cause interference with planes when they are close to the terminal.

Your internet pipes will be just a tad more than your figure per month so figure that in as well.

Don't forget maintenance contracts, spare parts and upkeep on your wireless network.

Also don't discount how much the power to run this beast will cost.

Finally, don't forget to factor in labor, probably a lot of it union to put all of this stuff in place.

Sure it should be free, just like we shouldn't have to pay to fly on their planes or pay for food at any of the restaurants at the airport.

Get your paws off my laptop

The folks at Google may have a few philanthropic sentiments but make no mistake; this is about money.

Google is a data mining company that makes its money selling advertising. People pay to appear in your search, and they attempt to track every term you enter and which links you click on.

This is the cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act. They are using lofty rhetoric to conceal their desire to look into your home.

PS: Computerworld is also running several scripts unrelated to this article in order to collect information on you.

Google Wifi

For google to offer us the wifi at the airports, is another opportunity of showing us how magnificient google can be. Although, some will argue that, it was not done without any benefit to the company but on the contrary it is just to show that no matter how big a company might be, there is still in them a social responsibility to the community as a whole.