Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (ABIA) News

For immediate release

May 23, 2011

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport Launches Complimentary Wi-Fi Service For Leisure Travelers

AUSTIN, TEXAS – The City of Austin Aviation Dept. and Boingo Wireless have partnered to launch a complimentary Wi-Fi service for leisure travelers at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The new service component includes 30 minutes of complimentary access for casual users in addition to the premium access for power users already available.

“Austin’s airport was the first to have Wi-Fi back in 2000.” said Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. “Now we are glad to extend that convenience to every traveler as a courtesy. This is an important part of the travel experience to our great city.”

The hybrid service offering allows Austin-Bergstrom to provide a convenient amenity to leisure travelers watching their budgets, while preserving robust network availability for business travelers who require reliable connections while on the road.

“We have a unique challenge in fulfilling the needs of disparate groups of travelers, while trying to enhance customer experiences for all,” said Jim Smith, Executive Director, City of Austin Aviation Dept. “This flexible Wi-Fi offering enables us to provide two very different constituencies with a great experience that meets both of their needs, while ensuring that the network is aggressively maintained for high availability and monitored for security risks to the airport and passengers, alike.”

“The hybrid service approach provides the resources to continue investing in the network and ensure an outstanding customer experience for Austin-Bergstrom passengers with a highly reliable network and around-the-clock customer support,” said Jim Janowiak, Boingo’s vice president of business development. “This will be increasingly important with the explosion of Wi-Fi enabled devices and growth in data-intensive applications that consume high quantities of bandwidth. More people will want to do more things with more devices. We’re committed to making that possible.”

The complimentary Wi-Fi is available throughout the terminal. Once a traveler initiates a session, it is active for 30 consecutive minutes. Travelers may redeem one complimentary session every 24 hours; after 24 hours, customers are again eligible for the 30-minute complimentary service. In some instances, a corporate sponsor will subsidize the complimentary session to help cover the costs of access, support and maintenance. For travelers who would like more than 30 minutes of complimentary service, there are free internet access kiosks located at Gates 5, 8, 11, 15, 21 and in baggage claim.

Once the complimentary session expires, customers can choose to purchase additional access from Austin-Bergstrom’s premium Wi-Fi service provider, Boingo Wireless, or leverage an existing account with one of Boingo’s myriad roaming partners. Paid options include: $4.95 for one hour, $7.95 for a day pass, or $9.95 for a month of unlimited access to more than 30,000 hotspots in North and South America, via the Boingo Unlimited monthly subscription. iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users have the option of buying one-hour credits for $1.99 each via the iTunes Store, when using the Boingo Wi-Fi Credits app. Wi-Fi roaming partners that can use their existing accounts to login include iPass, Skype, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, among others.

Travelers with questions about Austin-Bergstrom Wi-Fi services can contact Boingo Customer Care by phone (1-800-880-4117) or e-mail (support@boingo.com). Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. For more information on connecting with Boingo at its more than 325,000 hotspots around the world, visit Boingo's website.

Austin-Bergstrom has nonstop service to 38 destinations in the U.S. and Mexico and served 8.7 million passengers in 2010. A complete listing of all nonstop flight destinations from Austin and the airlines that serve them is available on www.abia.org, click on 'airlines & flights.’

Source: City of Austin