If you’re on Sprint and you travel quite a bit, this news is definitely going to be good news for you. Today, Sprint and Boingo announced that they have entered a multi-year deal to bring seamless WiFi to Sprint customers in 35 of the nation’s airports. So now, instead of having to pay to use Boingo’s Hotspot service, Sprint users will get the fastest speed available for free. Your Sprint smartphone will actually auto-connect to those Hotspots. I noticed this, this week when I was traveling to New York for LG’s G4 event. The Sprint Galaxy S6 I had with me had WiFi turned off, but it would turn on and connect to Boingo Hotspot. Probably a way for Sprint to get some congestion off of their network in that area as well.
“With Wi-Fi being the world’s largest wireless ecosystem, we view it as a highly complementary layer to our network,” said Stephen Bye, Sprint CTO. “By enabling customers to move seamlessly between secure Wi-Fi and cellular, our customers will have a better mobile experience in more locations, all while lowering their cost of data usage.”
If you’ve ever been to an airport and tried to use your phone as a hotspot, you probably know just how frustrating it is. For example, at New York’s LaGuardia airport, it’s almost impossible to get a decent data connection, without paying for the airport’s WiFi. With Sprint giving their users Boingo Hotspot access for free, it’s a pretty big deal. If you’re a frequent domestic traveller, you’re going to love this partnership between Sprint and Boingo.
“Boingo’s relationship with Sprint removes the traditional barriers between Wi-Fi and cellular service,” said David Hagan, Chief Executive Officer for Boingo Wireless. “Sprint is a market leader with the integration of Wi-Fi and cellular, which is a very customer centric solution to provide an always-best-connected experience through either network.”
Currently, this service is only live in 35 major US airports. Hopefully we’ll see it expand to more and more. Sprint hasn’t released a list of which airports have Boingo Hotspot and which don’t. We did reach out to clarify that information, and will update once that info is available.
Update: The list of all 35 US airports can be found here. Some of the highlights include Boston Logan International Airport, Dallas Love Field, Chicago Midway, Miami International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, and many others!