By Claudia Rice (guest blogger)
On Monday Verizon Communications announced that they are teaming with Boingo Wireless to offer free Wi-Fi to customers across the nation. Verizon is offering free Wi-Fi access to those who sign new contracts, or for those with existing premium FIOS and DSL service contracts. Verizon customers with laptops can now easily access the Internet at any Verizon Wi-Fi hotspot at no extra cost. These locations are a breeze to find, using their searchable Wi-Fi Access HotSpot Locator.
Other companies have offered similar free Wi-Fi service to their Internet customers for some time, but until now Verizon had not responded to the competition from companies like AT&T, Cablevision and Comcast. I guess it is better late, than never.
Blogging about this new offer, Electronista highlights what is not made clear is whether Verizon will offer this free Wi-Fi service at all international Boingo hotspots. There is also no mention of exactly when this free service will begin, so my suggestion is to keep checking for updates at the Verizon site.
One thing to keep in mind if you are looking into which Internet provider to sign up with or switch to; Verizon’s Free Wi-Fi service will only be offered for PC laptops and “not PDAs, mobile phones or Macs” according to their website.
Free Wi-Fi is always great to find but this Verizon’s service seems rather limiting because of the device restrictions. Although this service might be of use to professionals who travel, or to the few who still lug around their laptops, the majority of people are depending more and more on their PDAs and mobile phones/smart phones to stay plugged-in when they are out of the office. Leaving this group out in the cold might not be such a smart move. Also, as a loyal Mac user who is planning to switch over to FIOS service, I am concerned that they are not making Wi-Fi available to Mac users at this time. Verizon is missing an opportunity to connect with the younger subset of consumers who are not only drawn to all Mac products but who use smart phones or PDAs mainly as social networking tools.
I would like to point out that Verizon does allow up to 3 other sub-accounts to have simultaneous access to the free Wi-Fi — so 4 users linked to the same account can use this service. Kudos on this multi-user account aspect, however, I must admit I don’t know of any family or group of friends living together – using one Internet account, whom own 4 laptops. Still, I guess you can say, this part of the offer is generous.
If you have a laptop computer and are not a Verizon consumer be sure to check with your Internet provider to see if they offer similar free Wi-Fi, because you could be missing out on a service that might be available through your contract. Also check to see if PDAs, mobile phones and Macs are included in the free Wi-Fi offer — the service may turn out to be more valuable than you think.
Be sure to check out CNET’s Marguerite Reardon’s article, which provides detailed information on the new service offered. Verizon’s website also contains more particulars on this free Wi-Fi offer, together with a FAQs page, which should cover any questions you have about access and service.
Want to read even more about Verizon’s new free Wi-Fi service? Check out these links:
- Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
- Computerworld – More information on Boingo Wireless access points
- InformationWeek
I was pleasantly surprised that Verizon blogger Eric Rabe responded to my tweet about this post–pointing me to his blog post on the topic for additional information. If you want more information check it out http://bit.ly/txU3k