Airports are finally getting the Wi-Fi religion, but only 19 of top 50 airports have service; 6 are deciding on vendors: I know regular readers of this site are used to seeing my byline on any Wi-Fi obsessive article in the New York Times, but I can't be everywhere. Jane Levere writes an extremely tight wrap-up on the current and future state of Wi-Fi in airports, focusing on pricing, utility, and the lack of roaming plans.
As noted earlier today, SBC has signed roaming agreements with a number of airport providing hotspot operators: if it added Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless's locations, it would have the hat trick. But until SBC actually adds it's newest partners into their network and signs additional locations, we've got a pretty scattered set of airports under any given plan.
One item not mentioned that affects Wi-Fi in airports is the airlines and concessionaires sudden ability to put in their own networks per a recent FCC clarification that only they can regulate unlicensed spectrum, not landlords or airport authorities. This report is just a month old, and I'm sure that airlines, retail shops, and other tenants of airports are still digesting the decision and beating airport authorities over the head about it. We'll very likely see a number of interesting airport options that crop up with that artificial landlord restriction removed. The authorities may try to keep a lid on through other methods, but the FCC handed tenants a blunt instrument.
(Now, don't get on me about spectrum etiquette and coordination. It's a good idea. If you have 20 networks operating in a small space all on the same channel--very bad. Tragedy of the commons. And so forth. But etiquette is enforced when no one gets utility unless everyone cooperates. Prisoner's Dilemma and all that. Thus, spectrum coordination for unlicensed use can happen ante or post facto.)