When I travel outside the U.S., airports seem to all have free WiFi. And they have it at Oakland and in Jacksonville, though it doesn't usually work in the latter. But most U.S. airports seem old-fashioned and predatory when it comes to WiFi. Well Google's about to fix that... at least for the Holiday season (November 10 through January 15). And they're doing it in over 40 airports.

My own local airport, Burbank, is one of the lucky ones and, in fact, they announced that they'll continue Google's generosity indefinately. So will Seattle.

These are the airports getting the free WiFi:

• Austin (AUS)
• Baltimore (BWI)
• Billings (BIL)
• Boston (BOS)
• Bozeman (BZN)
• Buffalo (BUF)
• Burbank (BUR)
• Central Wisconsin (CWA)
• Charlotte (CLT)
• Des Moines (DSM)
• El Paso (ELP)
• Fort Lauderdale (FLL)
• Fort Myers/SW (RSW)
• Greensboro (GSO)
• Houston (HOU)
• Houston Bush (IAH)
• Indianapolis (IND)
• Jacksonville (JIA)
• Kalamazoo (AZO)
• Las Vegas (LAS)
• Louisville (SDF)
• Madison (MSN)
• Memphis (MEM)
• Miami (MIA)
• Milwaukee (MKE)
• Monterey (MRY)
• Nashville (BNA)
• Newport News (PHF)
• Norfolk (ORF)
• Oklahoma City (OKC)
• Omaha (OMA)
• Orlando (MCO)
• Panama City (PFN)
• Pittsburgh (PIT)
• Portland (PWM)
• Sacramento (SMF)
• San Antonio (SAT)
• San Diego (SAN)
• San Jose (SJC)
• Seattle (SEA)
• South Bend (SBN)
• Spokane (GEG)
• St. Louis (STL)
• State College (SCE)
• Toledo (TOL)
• Traverse City (TVC)
• West Palm Beach (PBI)

No New York City, no L.A., no San Francisco, no Chicago and no Washington, DC... but who uses them anyway? Meanwhile though, Google has also worked out free WiFi for its entire hometown, Mountain View, California and "last month it partnered with Virgin America to give the airline's customers free access to Gogo's Inflight Internet" (also ending January 15).

While Google's move to offer free wireless in airports is an original twist, several companies are already running similar sponsorship campaigns on domestic flights.

E-commerce giant eBay said it will provide free WiFi through Gogo on more than 250 domestic Delta Airline flights during the busiest travel week of the year, over the Thanksgiving holiday. From Nov. 24-30, flyers who log in will be taken to eBay's holiday-themed homepage and invited to "complete your holiday shopping while still en-route to your Thanksgiving destination."

Car maker Lexus wrapped up one week of complimentary Internet on American Airlines flights on Friday. The promotion coincided with the introduction of the 2010 Lexus LS line.

We're happy to take what we can get from our benificent corporate masters.

I saw this on new service from Updates.Orbitz.com on TechCrunch.com:




It is basically a user generated airport news services where users can instantly post the good and bad things they are experiencing at US airports -- like parking problems, unusual TSA delays, flight delays, etc. -- as seen in the Youtube.com video, above. This is in addition to more static information about airport and flight conditions.

Do people really use things like this? I suppose I might if I spent a lot of my life in really large airports that have enough geeks using them to generate some useful up-to-date information, and if wanted to shave off some potentially wasted minutes. However, I do not fly through SFO or LAX that often. For my main hub aiport, PHX, the latest postings tell me that 4 hours ago there were long lines at the US Air and Southwest checking counters -- so what else is new? The lines are almost always long at those two airlines. In my opinion, air travel these days is so unpredictable, the best insurance is to arrive early and be prepared to wait. I may be wrong, but I think that user-generated information can have its limits.

There was a user generated gem in the comments on the TechCrunch posting. It was for AtLarge.com -- a site where users submit reviews and tips on wireless connectivity at airpoirts around the world. I found it one of the better looking and most useful sites of this kind that I have seen. Travelpost.com has a good listing of paid airports wifi services, but no user reviews like AtLarge.com, which is a real plus!


And remember to watch out who/what you are connecting to at an airport, as there have been reports of fake wifi services out to capture your personal information. JiWire.com also has a good guide to using airport wifi, along with a summary of availability at US airports.

PS: I found two other site that have reviews of airports around the world: AirlineEquality.com and ReviewCentre.com. Both have more of a discussion forum approach and have a limited number of airports and/or reviews. And, of course, neither is "live" like Update.Orbitz.com.