On Message with Ben Gross

Boingo Wireless began offering a flat-rate WiFi hotspot service called Boingo Global for international jetseters earlier this year. The service is $39 a month for unlimited use. There are no contracts, setup fees, termination fees, or roaming fees. For frequent international travelers the pricing is very competitive as there are no additional roaming fees for international use, unlike the majority of it’s competitors. International hotspot access is often considerably more expensive than in the United States. Boingo Wireless was founded in 2001 by Sky Dayton, who is also the founder Earthlink.

Overall, I can highly recommend the service as my connection speeds were fast, reliable, and worked well for web browsing, email, file transfers, and making VoIP calls internationally. I used both a Boingo Wireless press comp account and a personal account over a several month period in several European countries and throughout a number of states in the US.

The signup process was straightforward and can either be done in advance or at a Boingo hotspot location such as an airport. I was able to cancel my personal account without any complications or hassles after a lengthy international trip. I needed to cancel via the phone as cancellation is not available online. The process was refreshingly simple compared to the nightmare cancellation experience I had with Earthlink a number of years back. Since the cancellation process was so painless I converted my account to a pay as you go rather than canceling entirely. I would have no hesitation about re-subscribing if my international travel were to increase again.

Boingo has it’s own software that supports laptop users running Windows 2000, XP, and Vista and Mac OS X Tiger (10.4). The Boingo software can automatically recognize and connect subscribers to most Boingo hotspots. For laptop users, the Boingo software is not required, for all but a very small percentage of the Boingo hotspots, but it makes the process of connecting easier. Boingo has both a full blown connection manager as well as a lightweight tool to help users authenticate to Boingo and partner hotspots.

The software is required for users with subscribing to the Boingo Mobile plan. Currently, Boingo Mobile supports devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 and Nokia S60 as well as Nokia N800/N810 models. Windows Mobile 6 is currently going through Boingo’s certification process. In order to increase adoption on new mobile devices, Boingo released the Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit in 2006 with both commercial and open source licenses. According to Boingo’s director of marketing, Christian Gunning, Boingo Mobile users have access to about 70% of the total Boingo footprint at this time and the Boingo Global and Boingo Mobile plans are independent, but that Boingo is actively working to harmonize access and logins between plans.

There is some room for improvement with Mac OS X client. The software does not work with Intel Core 2 Duo machines (i.e. machines made in the last year) and seemed slow to update new locations on a Mac OS X, but otherwise worked as advertised. Boingo says that they will release an updated Macintosh version that supports recently machines and Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) in the early part of 2008. Again the software is not required for users of laptop plans and any device with a modern browser should be able to authenticate through the Web interface. I had a few problems authenticating via a small number of roaming partner sites, but this did not appear to be Boingo’s fault. One of the partner sites I had difficulties with was Sprint. Boingo recently acquired seven Sprint WiFi airport locations. My problems with the Sprint locations immediately went away after they were converted to Boingo locations.

Boingo has a variety of pricing plans. Boingo Global is $39 a month. Boingo Unlimited that includes North American coverage is $21.95 a month. AsYouGo is $7.95 per day for North America and $9.95 for International plus roaming fees. Boingo Mobile is $7.95 a month. Corporate and group plans are also available.

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