Google's Free Wi-Fi Gift: Lessons for Airports to Learn

Google announced yesterday that they'd be offering holiday travelers free Wi-Fi Access at 47 airports from November 17th. Add to that Google has begun offering Internet on Virgin America flights for the holiday season today and you have quite the Christmas spirit from Google.

The deal ends on January 15th. But why should we have to pay for Wi-Fi in airports anyway?

What does a connection to the Internet cost? A few hundred bucks a month for redundant fiber connections? Next, you'll need mesh of Wireless access points at $100/pop.

Finally, you'll have a few thousand in setup charges and you are off on your way. What's the total cost? Depending on the airport, most likely significantly less than many other infrastructure costs. It would cost a fraction of what those beeping electric shuttles that carry people around the airport cost.

Many airports already have free Wi-Fi and a lot of travelers have 3G Internet access of some sort. It just seems like such a small effort on the part of the airport to install a wireless network.

OK, the airports don't want to do it? Fine, why don't advertising companies jump in then. For the price of a sponsored SSID and a few pop-ups, they could easily subsidize the cost of Airport Wi-Fi Networks.

Which brings us back to the question of why did Google choose this Christmas campaign? Could they be seeing how many people would use a free Wireless ISP service with advertising? This could be a survey to grab number on how many people use this and what type of bandwidth they use.

Or could this be a beta test of their upcoming wireless IPv6 ISP service? Sure they are only sponsoring the free Internet over other carriers like Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income, and others, but maybe there is more.

From the Press release: Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely. Hmmmmm.