BatesLine

« Henry with huge lead; some down-ballot races close | Main | Kathy's travelblogue »

PNS envy

Pensacola Regional Airport has free wireless Internet service. In fact, 122 out of 218 U. S. airports offer free wi-fi to travelers.

Tulsa doesn't. Although the Tulsa Airport Authority provides its own wireless service to passengers (as opposed to working with a national provider like Boingo or T-Mobile), it charges $5.95 per hour, $9.95 for the whole day. Because it's their own service, they wouldn't need a provider's cooperation to drop the charge.

What many hotels, restaurants, and airports have discovered is that if you already have a high-speed Internet connection in place for business reasons (typically there's one for handling strongly-encrypted credit card transactions), it doesn't cost much more to add a few wireless routers and open it up for other users.

There's a practical advantage: Free wi-fi allows business travelers to stay productive during delays, which makes for less tension on the concourse when a flight is rescheduled or cancelled. It also makes it possible for travelers to investigate alternate flights, so that everyone doesn't have to wait in line to get booked onto a new flight.

Mostly, though, free wi-fi would be a way to extend hospitality. It would be a way to leave a positive final impression on visitors to our city.

No, Oklahoma City doesn't have it yet, but we don't need to wait for them to go first, do we?

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.batesline.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2497

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference PNS envy:

» Just pluck it out of the air from dustbury.com
Michael Bates argues that the Tulsa Airport Authority should drop its $9.95-a-day fee for wireless Internet at Tulsa International, and there are good reasons to do so: There's a practical advantage: Free wi-fi allows business travelers to stay product... [Read More]

Comments (5)

You are right, we shouldnt wait on them, we should leapfrog them and give away free laptops to every passenger!

Bob:

Michael, just another example of what I've coined as:

THE TULSA PREMIUM.

Gasoline is HIGHER here than in Dallas, Muskogee, or Oklahoma City.

More of: THE TULSA PREMIUM.

Ironically, both SFO and San Jose, in the heart of techie land, still make you pay for wireless. It's a shame.

I think airport management sees that as a way to make a few quick bucks, and no one's likely to complain about it.

Maybe Bob is right. WiFi at Will Rogers costs only $7.95 a day. (If your provider has an access agreement with Concourse, which runs the Will Rogers WiFi, you'll pay only your regular roaming charges.)

Regular unleaded was $1.97 most places in Midwest City on Thursday, the last time I paid any attention to gas prices.

RJJ:

Can we really expect anyone in Oklahoma to pass up the opportunity to charge someone a toll?

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

eXTReMe Tracker

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on October 13, 2006 3:11 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Henry with huge lead; some down-ballot races close.

The next post in this blog is Kathy's travelblogue.

For the latest entries, visit the main page, which also has links to archives by month and by category.

Contact

E-mail: blog AT batesline DOT com

BlogAds

Blog Ad Swap

Support BatesLine

Show your appreciation and help fund hosting and research expenses:

BatesLine is PayPal Verified