Travelers at Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) are now able to use 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi access, thanks to a partnership between the city of Austin Aviation Department and Boingo Wireless.
“Austin’s airport was the first to have Wi-Fi back in 2000,” says Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. “Now, we are glad to extend that convenience to every traveler as a courtesy. This is an important part of the travel experience to our great city.”
The free 30 minutes are in addition to the premium access already available for power users. This hybrid service is aimed at leisure travelers who just want to get online without having to pay for it, while keeping the network availability for business travelers who require strong connections.
“We have a unique challenge in fulfilling the needs of disparate groups of travelers, while trying to enhance customer experiences for all,” says Jim Smith, Executive director of the aviation department. “This flexible Wi-Fi offering enables us to provide two very different constituencies with a great experience that meets both of their needs, while ensuring that the network is aggressively maintained for high availability and monitored for security risks to the airport and passengers, alike.”
Jim Janowiak, Boingo’s vice president of business development, says, “The hybrid service approach provides the resources to continue investing in the network and ensure an outstanding customer experience for Austin-Bergstrom passengers with a highly reliable network and around-the-clock customer support. This will be increasingly important with the explosion of Wi-Fi enabled devices and growth in data-intensive applications that consume high quantities of bandwidth. More people will want to do more things with more devices. We’re committed to making that possible.”
The free Wi-Fi service is available throughout the terminal. Travelers have 30 minutes of uninterrupted access once it is activated, and a session may be redeemed once every 24 hours. Once the complimentary session expires, customers can choose to purchase additional access from Austin-Bergstrom’s premium Wi-Fi service provider, Boingo Wireless, or leverage an existing account with one of Boingo’s myriad roaming partners.
For those who want more than 30 minutes, there are free Internet kiosks at Gates 5, 8, 11, 15 and 21, and in baggage claim.
In some cases, a corporate sponsor will subsidize the free session to help cover the costs of access, support and maintenance.
Paid options include $4.95 for one hour, $7.95 for a day pass or $9.95 for a month of unlimited access to more than 30,000 hotspots in North and South America, via the Boingo Unlimited monthly subscription. iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users can buy one-hour credits for $1.99 each via the iTunes Store, when using the Boingo Wi-Fi Credits app. Wi-Fi roaming partners that can use their existing accounts to login include iPass, Skype, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, among others.
