It would seem that numerous major technology companies want to give you the gift of free Wi-Fi for this holiday season.
Travelling through airports is never fun, and since you never know exactly how long you will be stuck in some of them due to delays, there is always a temptation to pay the excessive fees for a few hours of Wi-Fi to pass the time. Well, Google has heard your cries, and now through Jan. 15th, 2010, the search giant will be providing free Wi-Fi for the taking in 47 major airports across the United States.
Google announced today that it is partnering up with airport Wi-Fi providers Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi in airports such as Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte.
Also, while using any of these free airport connections, you will be asked if you would like to make a donation to the charities Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google will match donations made up to $250,000. As an added incentive, the airport with the highest per passenger donation rate by Jan. 1st, 2010 will be awarded $15,000 from Google to be donated to the non-profit charity of their choosing.
If you happen to be flying on Virgin America this holiday season, Google will also be providing free in-flight Wi-Fi on their routes. You can read details on all of the airports, flights, charity donations and more at FreeHolidayWiFi.com.
So, great, all of those people in airports are getting all of that free Wi-Fi, but what are you going to do if you’re in Times Square in New York City? Well, that’s where Yahoo comes in! According to paidContent, starting today, Yahoo will provide free Wi-Fi in Times Square for one year. While this may seem like an odd place to whip out your laptop, think of the tourist factor as they get out their iPhones, iPod Touches and other Wi-Fi enabled devices to make dinner reservations, try to find tickets to Broadway shows and so on. And New Year’s Eve? Forget about it. More pictures than ever will probably be uploaded live from the celebration.
As for Microsoft, it has partnered with mobile advertising firm JiWire according to MediaPost to offer users free Wi-Fi in exchange for doing one search on Microsoft’s Bing search engine. This will be done at selected hotspots in places such as hotels and airports.
It seems the air is going to be filled with free Wi-Fi for some time to come, why not take advantage of it?
