According to the Palm Beach Post, holiday gifts are coming early this season as Google announced it started offering free Wi-Fi in 47 airports across the country.
The company will pay the wireless costs for these airports through Jan. 15. It's also currently offering free Wi-Fi to all domestic Virgin America flights until that time.
The idea, according to a statement from the company, is to offer a gift to travelers who may have to spend considerable time in an airport this busy holiday season.
It's also a way for Google Inc. to get free advertising.
According to PBIA spokeswoman Cassandra Davis, Google will be getting an advertisement on the airport's Wi-Fi splash page — the screen that appears when users try to access the Internet from the airport — in exchange for footing the Wi-Fi bill.
PBIA already offers free wireless Internet to travelers in its airport.
"They're basically using this as a way to sell their name and advertise their name out there," said Michael Simmons, PBIA's deputy director of finance, "and we make a little money, so it's definitely a win-win."
Simmons said that Google is giving the airport about $20,000 over the three-month period. He said it is the first time someone has advertised on the airport's splash page.
Both he and Davis noted that the airport will continue to offer free Wi-Fi after Google's promotion is over in January.
Other airports that Google is offering free Wi-Fi do not routinely offer free Internet; an operator at Miami International Airport said that after the Google promotion is over, travelers will again have to pay for Internet access in the terminals.
Google is just the latest company to offer a free Wi-Fi promotion in recent months. Yahoo is offering free Wi-Fi for a year to users in Times Square in New York. That promotion also began today.
Meanwhile, eBay will be offering free Wi-Fi on more than 250 domestic Delta flights over Thanksgiving week, Nov. 24-30. And car maker Lexus recently completed a promotion for its new 2010 Lexus LS in which it gave a free week of Internet on American Airlines flights.
Microsoft and mobile-advertising firm Jiwire also started a free Wi-Fi promotion in airports and hotels around the country, but it has a caveat: you must use Microsoft's Bing search engine to do at least one search in order to get the free Internet.
The decision to offer free Wi-Fi in airports during the holidays appears to be a smart one, since travel tends to go up during that season. PBIA's Davis said that about 500 travelers connected to the airport's Wi-Fi on an average day, but that "in the past, holiday season has meant more people in an airport and more users getting online."
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