Boingo - WiFi Aggregator - Offers Flat Rate WiFi Worldwide

Just saw This NY Times Article. For folks with WiFi devices, it might be worth checking into.

 

100,000 hot spots worldwide? Lets be generous, and say each hot spot has a 1 mile diameter range, and none of them overlap: 100000 * 3.14159 * .5^2 = 78,539 square miles of land area covered. Earth total land area: 57,500,000 square miles. About 40% of this is used for cropland, so not really useful, and let's be generous, another, say, 30% is unusable and uninhabited. That leaves 17,250,000 square miles left where people might be. Is it really worth paying $40/month to get service in only .45% of the area where populations are? I'm being a little pessimistic, but still, it's not going to provide service in the vast majority of places that anyone is at. It might only be worth it for business types, and in that case, why not just sign up for a T-Mobile account and just hop online at any Starbucks, so you get coffee along with your service?

 

Well, first of all Starbucks coffee is crap. So I'm not interested. And, while Starbucks is almost everywhere, limiting yourself to Starbucks reduces your areas of coverage, even more.

Second, they are marketing this for the business traveller. So while "worldwide coverage" may be what they advertise, coverage in the cornfields of Kansas, the Yukon, or most of the ocean isn't really their target audience. More likely to be found in urban areas, airports, and hotels/restaurants.

Third, with increasing wireless security concerns (parallel and ghost WiFi spots) if they're offering increased security it could be worth it (vs. a random hotspot).

Fourth, the Verizon option is certainly an option. But it's always good to have more than one option (such as Linux or Windows). I'd actually probably buy a WiFi card from my carrier and use it. Oh, wait. After buying the card, I still have to pay for a monthly plan for it. Which, for my carrier, is still more than Boingo plans to charge.

So, maybe not the ideal solution for everyone, but still a nice option if someone wants it.

And, fifth (of whiskey, if you like), meant mostly tongue-in-cheek.

 

can I get service in Afghanistan? LOL

I need it when I am on a monkey biz trip dealing with talebans..

ridiculous.