Recently trapped in the Columbus, OH airport, I opened up my MacBook to discover that I had free WiFi. Huh, that's weird, I mused. But apparently I completely missed the trend that has led to so many airports offering free WiFi -- according to this chart, it looks like about two-thirds. (A story in the Times about Starbucks and WiFi elicited this irrelevant post.)
I suspect I missed this trend because all of the places I depart from or have layovers at -- Minneapolis, Seattle, San Fran, NYC, Chicago -- are in the one-third minority of free WiFi.
posted by Rex at 4:30 PM on March 4, 2007 
I've wondered about this as well and think there's some opportunity here. CNN has something of a lockup on televisions in airport lounges, seems like some other enterprising media company could make some headway by providing free and/or ad-supported WiFi for travelers who don't want to pay $5 just to check their email. I wonder if it's possible to convert that kind of ephemeral goodwill into repeat customers...
posted by Jim Ray at 6:06 PM on March 4, 2007
Let's be careful out there...
Also sitting at airports are hackers, happy to advertise "Free Wi-Fi" SSID's, so they can participate in man-in-the-middle attacks. (They sit closer/put out a stronger signal than the "real" access point, and may even relay your credentials and pay for your air time. They also record your network traffic, in the hopes that some key bit of info comes across in cleartest.)
posted by David at 8:44 AM on March 5, 2007
what ever happened to war-chalking?
posted by a.berglund at 3:39 PM on March 5, 2007
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