Boingo partners with ICOA, expands to 75 airports: The battle for road warriors hearts and minds starts and ends in the airport. Boingo now has a roaming deal for all six of Icoa's airports, and 69 others worldwide. The other day, I noted that SBC had signed up to resell access at or operate service in many of the U.S. airports that offer service. If they broker a few more deals, they could have the only comprehensive airport service plan.
A colleague of mine, a technology writer who travels frequently, says he rarely sees people working on laptops in airports. I don't know how that's possible, with the gate areas full of laptop users before flights furtively plugged into power. He's fallen in love with a Treo, which allowed him to skip opening his laptop on a recent trip.
I still wonder how many applications people actually need. Does Blackberry's success show that low-speed email is the primary application and that everything else is a distant second? I doubt it every time I see a plane full of cramped business people desperately typing away, reviewing Acrobat documents, building PowerPoint presentations, running Excel spreadsheets, and using proprietary software.