The special iTunes plan costs $7.99 per month and is available directly through the Boingo Wi-Finder app for iOS. The software also includes a VPN service. By using the iTunes in-app purchase, users can immediately get a Wi-Fi subscription for their iPod touch, iPad or iPhone. The subscription is an auto-renewal, however: if you don’t want to continue it on a monthly basis, you’ll have to cancel it.

This is a clever move by Boingo to make it easier for paid Wi-Fi access. There are two things I’d like to see in the future though. First, offer an in-app purchase for other Boingo plans, such as an hourly or daily basis. Currently, the company does offer Boingo Credits, which provide an hour of Wi-Fi access for $1.99, for example. Second, why not extend the same simple in-app purchase on Android through Google Wallet?

Either way, potential Boingo customers using iOS devices now have one less barrier to get connectivity in airports, shopping malls, restaurants, universities and other locations around the world.

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As cities around the U.S. look at gigabit connections and see the future infrastructure that they ought to provide to ensure their citizens have access to 21st century jobs and remain (or maybe even become) hotbeds of innovation, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has also hopped on board the train. The Chairman, playing the role of chief cheerleader called for a Gigabit Challenge three weeks ago: asking that every state in the U.S. get at least one gigabit city by 2015.

The real gigabit challenge is to change the ISP mindset

But he had it wrong. No matter what the FCC does, there will be gigabit cities in most states by 2015, or those networks will be under construction. The real gigabit challenge is to get the telcos to think like tech companies or to get them out of the way. If we accept that broadband is the silicon of the next fifty years — providing the platform for technological innovation and advancement that chips had done from 1960 on — then we need the providers of broadband to think like tech firms. Intel makes for a great example.

One of Intel’s fabrication plants.

The chip giant has consistently pushed for faster and more chips off its manufacturing lines — even when its manufacturing operations cost billions to build. It has never told consumers that its 486 chips would be sufficient, and then tried to control the programs that would run on them. Instead it has pushed its partners for faster software that would require faster and better chips. And it then pushed those chips into new areas such as servers. Intel delivers a commodity of sorts — the x86 platform — but it still raked in profits of $2.5 billion last year, and is even now investing up to $2 billion to change its fabrication methods to produce even more chips on larger wafers.

On the flip side, we have the telcos and the cable guys who generally provide most of the broadband in this country. In different eras and in different ways each has made vast technological investments in networks that can deliver broadband around the U.S. But after their initial investments they stopped looking ahead in many cases, or pushing their envelope. When the telcos saw the success of ISPs they bought them up. As cable providers saw the success of ISPs, they came out with their own broadband services that were faster than the DSL technology the cables had.

The broadband race ended in the mid-2000s

The 90′s and early 2000′s were a great time for broadband. There was competition from various providers, and differing technologies and people responded. Consumers signed up for these new services, and entrepreneurs built products that ranged from eBay and Napster all the way up to the genesis of Facebook. But then two things happened.

First, broadband adoption slowed. Unlike telephone lines, if you had one broadband account in the home you didn’t really need another. During this time the cable companies and telcos focused on their other lines of business, adding HD channels on the cable side and putting money in wireless and additional phone features on the telco side.

The other thing that occurred was a more hands-off regulatory view of the interent; regulators came to regard competition between cable and telcos as sufficient to ensure that people would get the connections they needed. But unlike a tech firm, which seizes on the absence of regulation to push ahead with a grand vision (such as gather all of the earth’s information), the telcos and cable guys just sat on their networks making money off their investments from the previous five or ten years.

They didn’t pay attention to where the world was going other than to grouse about the profits folks like Google or Amazon were making off of “their pipes.” They wanted to stand still and reap profits because that’s what utilities do. They invest in infrastructure and they maintain it. Along they way they lobby the government to ensure or keep their profits. And that’s why there are grim charts about how the cost per megabit are going up, despite the falling costs of providing a megabit.

Unlike Intel, which puts a lot of R&D in its business and hopes to sell more of its chips in more places, and so invests in technologies that drive the adoption of silicon, ISPs are implementing caps and incentives that are aimed to preventing people from using broadband — or at least second guessing themselves when they do. Should I buy a Dropcam? It uses 60 GB a month of data? Should I download the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy in HD or will that push me over my quota for the month?

A modest proposal for ISPs

If ISPs had been thinking like tech firms they would have realized that their goal was to connect everyone to the internet, deliver the internet everywhere and invest in applications that would drive demand for faster speeds. ISPs should have beat Boingo and Wayport to the Wi-Fi hot spot business. They should look at the internet of things and see opportunities for delivering quality of service and prioritization and create services for that. And fundamentally, they should be playing a game where they want to get to a gigabit, because if everyone wants a gigabit connection, they will have to get wireline connections for home and still have their Wi-Fi and cellular for everywhere else.

So now that the RFP for North Carolina is out, maybe we’ll see an ISP step up to the plate and think like a tech firm. There are plenty of innovations they could help drive to lower the cost of deploying such networks. Or maybe they could take a page from Google and try some social engineering. After all, that document allows the incumbent broadband providers the same ability to participate as it does for a Gigabit Squared or a Google. And if that could help get ISPs to think like tech firms, then it could benefit us all.

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Google is buying sponsorship on Boingo’s managed network, allowing the free access to anyone after they first view an initial Google Play splash screen. But there’s a difference between this one and previous promotions. The campaign only targets laptop and Android users so if you connect to the network with an iPhone, iPad or Windows Phone device, you will wind up paying the hotspot owner’s normal rates.

Last month, Google and Boingo announced they were expanding their free-Wi-Fi trial from New York to malls around the country, but today’s addition includes hotels, restaurants, shopping centers and even 15 major airports. “This kind of widespread sponsorship buy is remarkable,” said Sebastian Tonkin, former CEO of Cloud Nine Media who joined Boingo last month when the hotspot operator bought his company. While there have been several companies experimenting with sponsorship models at individual airports or at other locales, no one has really yet launched a nationwide campaign like Google, he said.

Tonkin said both hotspot owners and advertisers are intrigued by these new sponsorship models as they provide much higher per-ad fees for the former, and they deliver a captive audience for the latter. Rather than deliver ads through browser pop-ups customers can easily ignore, sponsored ads dominate the login screen when a customer first connects the network, Tonkin said.

Wi-Fi image courtesy of Flickr user suttonhoo

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The data usage tracker is exactly what a wireless network finder app should include as it demonstrates the benefits of offloading data from expensive cellular networks to lower priced, or free, Wi-Fi hotspots.

I took an early look at the new software on my iPhone 4S and it couldn’t be simpler to use. You just enter the amount of mobile broadband data your smartphone plan allows, as well as your costs on a per Gigabyte basis. The app also needs to know what day of the month your data plan billing cycle starts. After that, the app tracks both Wi-Fi and cellular usage, providing information on how much money you’re saving through using Wi-Fi.

The tracking information appears in an easy-to-read graph and there’s a constantly updated pie chart showing the percentage of time your iPhone or iPad is using Wi-Fi vs cellular data. The software also projects three metrics for the month, based on your usage history: Total data usage; Cellular usage; and Wi-Fi usage. The savings from using Wi-Fi is calculated through your per Gigabyte broadband cost.

Boingo’s updated app keeps the original features from its 2011 debut, so you can use it to find Wi-Fi hotspots nearby. It also includes a free VPN function for secure Wi-Fi connections. I like the addition of the data usage tracking because it can provide a true picture of data usage on both cellular and Wi-Fi networks. We know that Wi-Fi offload can help reduce cellular network demand, but according to research from Parks Associates, 50 percent of smartphone owners don’t know how much data they use each month.

Sure, you could look at your smartphone bill, but that’s after the fact — when you may have overages to pay — and it’s too late to take advantage of Wi-Fi offloading at that point. A combined data usage tool with a Wi-Fi finder provides the opportunity to proactively avoid overages or bandwidth throttling, helping to save money and give a better mobile experience at the same time.

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There are about 6000 Wendy’s locations in North America, but they won’t all necessary get Wi-Fi. According to a spokesperson, Boingo is gradually expanding Wendy’s hotspot footprint from a pilot of several dozen locations to the rest of the Wendy’s company-owned restaurants, but Wendy’s independent franchises will make the call on whether to participate in the program. Nearly three-quarters of Wendy’s restaurants are franchised, so there’s no guarantee that any given restaurant will participate.

Still, the deal could add more beef (get it?) to Boingo’s growing network, which now encompasses 500,000 managed hotspots globally. Boingo and its partners’ subscribers will connect automatically to the Wendy’s hotspots when they enter a participating restaurant, while all others will be able to login for free once accepting Wendy’s terms and conditions.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Sister72

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Wireless network provider Boingo Wireless notes that 58.9 percent of the total audience on its network in airports is made up of handsets and tablets, with the iPad alone accounting for 23.5 percent of these. While the recent growth of smartphone sales has surely contributed to this trend, Apple’s iPad may be just as big a factor; much of the mobile device growth Boingo has seen is from June 2010, or two months after the introduction of the original iPad.

In terms of smartphones, Apple’s iPhone is the most used device for Wi-Fi on Boingo’s airport network, with 42.1 percent of usage, or nearly four times as much as Android smartphones. Some other key takeaways:

• Average megabytes per month used by mobile devices is now 211 MB, or nearly double the 114 MB used on average in May of 2009.
• The corresponding megabytes used per minute is up as well: 0.89 MB vs 0.37 MB two years ago.
• Network usage on mobile devices equaled that of laptops in airports just this past February, indicating the trend is continuing to accelerate.
• While laptops outnumber mobile devices in terms of potential user audience by a factor of five, mobile devices now account for nearly 60 percent of Wi-Fi network usage.

I can remember wading through a sea of laptops while waiting for flights a few years back, but Boingo’s data roughly corresponds to what I see now: about half of those surfing the web at the gate are doing so on iPads and smartphones, with just an occasional sighting of an Android tablet.

I’m flying out this Sunday heading to our Mobilize event, and I’ll be sure to take a closer look at who’s using what while prepping for my flight. For the record, I’ll be packing my iPad for use in San Francisco, but I’m more likely to use my 7-inch Galaxy Tab at the gate and on the plane.

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Around the globe, In-Stat expects one million hotspot locations available by 2013, and based on the number of publicly available new Wi-Fi networks I’m seeing in my rural backyard, I’m not surprised. Businesses of every size are turning to Wi-Fi not only as a convenience for customers but also as a way to expand foot traffic, advertising opportunities and engagement. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores don’t have the most people on their networks, however. That distinction belongs to transportation hubs and convention centers, where the large crowds account for 30 percent of all Wi-Fi hotspot connects.

Laptop computers are still the No. 1 device for Wi-Fi hotspot use, which makes sense as Wi-Fi radios are standard fare for notebooks. Smartphones and tablets are catching up, however, even though many have integrated 3G or 4G radios. Device owners are apt to take advantage of free or low-cost hotspots to reduce the risk of mobile broadband data overages as carriers migrate away from unlimited data plans. The Wi-Fi connections are often faster and can use less power, which can save battery life on these mobile devices.

Network operators see the benefits of Wi-Fi offload and are likely to aid in the expansion of hotspot locations by partnering with businesses directly or through existing hotspot networks, such as Boingo Wireless. In July, for example, Japanese network operator KDDI said it would build out 100,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by March 2012 that will seamlessly work with the carrier’s WiMAX network. A seamless network transition, in addition to automatic log-in software — similar to Boingo’s current application — essentially turns Wi-Fi into the “other” cell network in this case.

Update: By way of email, In-Stat analyst Amy Cravens offered me additional context to the prediction of one million hotspot locations by 2013, saying there were an estimated 420,000 hotspot venues in 2010 and figures 630,000 by the end of 2011.

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In the coming year, Wi-Fi will become a different animal than what we currently know and love. Thanks to carriers getting more involved in using Wi-Fi for network offload — as well as more devices seeking a Wi-Fi signal — this hippie technology is about to get the layers of security, authentication and manageability once reserved for cellular networks.

“Wi-Fi is just in this second renaissance,” iPass’ CEO Evan Kaplan said in an interview. “People are building out Wi-Fi like crazy, and it [has] become a viable network for carriers and changes the industry landscape and allows them to offer service they can’t get their with licensed spectrum. There is a recognition [among carriers] that there is a role for Wi-Fi, and certain mobile services should not go through the 4G core.”

Kaplan anticipates that in the next four to five years Wi-Fi will become a carrier-dominated phenomenon. Of course, Kaplan is pitching his new service, which acts like an authentication and billing layer between Wi-Fi networks and enables carriers to track and charge those who roam onto Wi-Fi networks much the way data roaming happens today. It’s an awesome concept, but it has a downside for consumers: This level of service won’t be free.

Despite his interest in carrier-dominated Wi-Fi, Kaplan isn’t alone in his views. Ronald J. de Lange, the CEO of Tekelec, a company providing carrier gear, believes that Wi-Fi is here to stay, and that carriers are looking for ways to ensure reliability and track it across their networks. He sees an opportunity for startups — such as WeFi and Skyhook, which are building Wi-Fi databases — to offer services that carriers will pay for as they seek to implement roaming and perhaps charge their end users.

It’s hard to imagine a carrier like AT&T,which operates its own Wi-Fi hot spot network, will suddenly charge users for a service it currently provides as part of its mobile broadband (and wireline) service. But once roaming is widely implemented, it could charge users a fee for access to international hot spots. Under that scenario, AT&T gets new revenue, and so do potential roaming partners AT&T could end up paying for the privilege of its subscribers roaming onto their Wi-Fi networks.

It’s also likely that other providers who aggregate services, such as Boingo or even startups such as Macheen, will gain traction as Wi-Fi becomes more integral for connectivity and thus, worth more to consumers. Even if folks don’t pay a carrier, they may pay someone be it a service like Boingo or even a retailer or device maker selling a service created by iPass or Macheen.

Even if carriers can’t find a way to milk better Wi-Fi, Kaplan is right: Wi-Fi is hot, and carriers are interested. Just last week, KDDI announced that it will build 100,000 hot spots, and earlier this year China Telecom said it would deploy 1 million. Kaplan said iPass currently authenticates users across more than 500,000 hot spots: a number Kaplan expects to rise to seven-hundred-something thousand by the end of this year.

So now that Wi-Fi is clearly hot and clearly necessary, we’ll see carriers try to monetize it. Get ready for carrier-grade Wi-Fi and a new sales pitch.

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So viva the in-flight Wi-Fi indicators, and let’s get JetBlue on board with this trend. Also, for those who travel often and have a Boingo subscription, check out their deal with GoGo Internet. Now on flights offered by American Airlines, Delta, Alaska Airlines, U.S. Airways and others, Boingo users can get online using their Boingo log in, though they can’t pay Boingo prices. In-flight Wi-Fi is still a luxury item, it seems.

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LinkedIn’s pricing is a significant increase over the $175 million LinkedIn said it was seeking to raise back in January and suggests the company is receiving more interest in its shares. LinkedIn could command a market value of $3.3 billion at the midpoint of the proposed range. The company, which will trade under the symbol LNKD, hopes to debut this month on the New York Stock Exchange.

LinkedIn pulled in $243.1 million in revenue last year, an increase of 102 percent over 2009, with $15.4 million in net income, a 487-percent increase. In the first quarter of this year, it made $93.9 million, an increase of 110 percent over the same period in 2010, while net income was $2.1 million. The company, which makes money through hiring and marketing solutions and premium subscriptions, doesn’t expect to make a profit this year as it ramps up spending to upgrade its technology and infrastructure and expand its sales force. LinkedIn recently eclipsed the 100 million mark in registered users and now boasts 102 million registered users as of March 31.

A big debut by LinkedIn could help set the tone for upcoming IPOs from Kayak, Pandora, Fusion-io and others. And it could further heat up the market for public offerings. Freescale Semiconductor also announced terms on Monday for its upcoming IPO, and Angry Birds studio Rovio said it was also looking at going public in the next few years.

Peter Falvey, managing director and founder of tech investment bank Revolutions Partners, said it’s a mistake to lump LinkedIn with Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon because of its different business model and size. But the company could serve as a good barometer for upcoming tech IPOs and could set the stage for bigger debuts to come.

“I think as long as you see the equity markets hold and the economy doesn’t turn bad,  you’ll see a strong second half of the year,” Falvey said. “These companies will attract more attention to IPOs, and it will increase interest in subsequent offering later this year.”

It’ll be good to see how LinkedIn performs out of the gate. Boingo debuted last week and closed with a loss on the first day. LinkedIn will likely do better, considering its name recognition and its recent progress. But how much better could give us a sense how much optimism there is in tech IPOs. Giants like Facebook, Zynga and others are seeing valuations soar in secondary markets, so it could be LinkedIn is also headed for a big first day. But we’ll have to see firsthand how it does. As Falvey said, it’s a little presumptuous to lump all these IPOs together. But a good showing by LinkedIn could provide a nice bit of momentum for an IPO market that has been dormant for a while and is now getting hot again.

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