[IP] Next time you are at Pittsburgh Airport
'I'll have a sandwich with my Wi-Fi, please'
Wireless computer users rush to take advantage of free access at Pittsburgh
International's food courts
Thursday, February 26, 2004
By Corilyn Shropshire, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Balancing his silver Macintosh laptop like a waiter with a tray of dishes,
businessman Vito Palmieri paced the floor searching for an Internet signal.
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Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette
Anand Rao takes advantage of extra time and the free wireless internet
access at the Pittsburgh International Airport food court while waiting on
his flight.
Click photo for larger image.
He finally found one, just a few steps away from his table at
<http://www.pitairport.com/>Pittsburgh International Airport, which offers
travelers wireless fidelity or "Wi-Fi" Internet access in its food courts.
That Palmieri and other air travelers can get online while cooling their
heels is not unusual. Wireless networking is as common as last-minute air
fare deals, with some 150 airports around the world offering such service.
What is remarkable is that at Pittsburgh International, Wi-Fi users can
surf the Web free of charge. Most airports charge user fees, which
typically run from $7 to $10.
Salt-and-pepper-haired Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor Don
McPherson, who moonlights as a labor arbitrator, recently sat tapping away
on his laptop near the airport McDonald's before jetting off to his final
destination -- a meeting in Cincinnati.
McPherson, who lives in Indiana, Pa., was able to check the weather at his
destination city and quickly browse his work and home e-mail accounts.
Without the airport's free Wi-Fi access, he said, he wouldn't have bothered.
"It probably wouldn't be worth it. I wouldn't pay just to check e-mail."
Scenarios such as McPherson's are what airport general manager Tony
Gialloreto hoped would happen with no-fee Wi-Fi. "If you only have a delay
from a half-hour to an hour, it's not worth it for the traveling public to
pay a fee."
The goodwill that free Wi-Fi creates can only add to the airport's
reputation for service and innovation, Gialloreto said. If it also helps
passengers linger a little longer and spend a little more at the Airmall
and other attractions, all the better.
The airport introduced free Wi-Fi with little fanfare in October and plans
to expand the service to include all of the A, B and part of the C
concourses sometime this year. Whether the service remains free has yet to
be determined and will depend largely on whether the airport's cost for
providing it rise much.
Deploying the network, which involved installing box-like radio
transmitters, cost the airport less than $20,000. But maintaining,
servicing and expanding the network could prove to be more costly.
Pittsburgh International will begin charging for Wi-Fi only if it becomes
saddled with operation costs, Gialloreto said.
Brian Grimm, spokesman for the <http://www.wi-fi.org/>Wi-Fi Alliance, a
Wi-Fi network industry group, said travelers have come to expect
connectivity in airports -- as well as in coffeehouses, restaurants and
just about anywhere else where people gather. He said Pittsburgh
International's decision to make it free was "cool" and affirms the
airport's reputation as being "on the leading edge."
For Anand Rao, who recently received a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon
University, the free Wi-Fi provided something to do as he waited for a
flight that eventually would take him to his home in Pune, India. "I'm not
working on anything. It's just a good thing to pass time," he said with a
laugh as he crouched over his laptop while sitting in the food court.
Airport food courts typically are filled with harried travelers slurping
down drinks and gobbling food, but at Pittsburgh International recently,
many were like Rao, tapping away at a computer with one hand and holding a
sandwich in the other. "The first thing I did was e-mail my friends that
I'm using the Internet in the airport," said Rao.
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(Corilyn Shropshire can be reached at
<mailto:cshrosphire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>cshrosphire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or
412-263-1413.)
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