Boingo Wireless announces two deals today: three airports with 11 million passengers, and 500 truck stops: The airport deal adds Sacramento and Savannah/Hilton Head via Airport Network Solutions, a division of ICOA. Baton Rouge is on its way. The strategy of unwiring smaller airports provides a much more focused, motivated audience of consumers. Travelers who spend a lot of time in and out of those airports are thus much more likely to tick over and become unlimited monthly Boingo customers ($21.95/month in their first 12 months).
The inclusion of the Sacramento location validates a previous point I made back in August 2003 when that airport's unwiring was announced. The article I linked to them said that the network's usage was predicted unreasonably at 35 users per day at $6.95 a pop. I pointed out that they needed to be reselling the network and having much higher usage expectations at much lower revenue to produce the outcome they hoped for.
Boingo's second deal connects them with Truckstop.net which has 500 hotspots in the U.S. and Canada at a number of travel plaza operators' locations. Interestingly, Boingo's unlimited price is only slightly cheaper or the same than competing truck-stop networks. But Boingo's service has 6,000 other locations included in the same price.
TravelCenters of America is about to make its big push over the next three months, bringing dozens of locations online. Flying J has also started its extensive buildout.