What it is: Yes, you can park your laptop at some pay phones
and log on that way. But some pay phones aren't just computer
parking spots, but all-inclusive browsers. At 80 AT&T
PowerPhones installed this past year at all three New York
airports, users can check e-mail and surf travel, news, sports,
stocks, and weather sites on a 12-inch screen for 25 cents per
minute. In
Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport, 10 PP2000i pay phones
allow users to surf the complete Web and talk on the telephone at
the same time, for the same quarter-a-minute rate. Eventually,
AT&T plans to convert 1,250 existing airport pay phones across
the nation to the new PP2000i model.
PUBLIC INTEREST KIOSKS
What it is: These pioneers of airport
Web access are
undergoing growing pains, industry consolidation, and, in some
cases, makeovers. Web access varies; some allow surfing to selected
sites only, and others open the entire Web. Prices range from free
to $3.75 for 15 minutes.
Get2Net's free service is subsidized by advertisers on big screens,
signs, or online ads. Based in Englewood,
Colorado, Get2Net has
kiosks in 15 U.S. airports, with plans to add 100 more, one-third
of them in the South. Plus, its kiosks have a sleek new look:
silvery, rounded edges, and brightly colored keyboards.
QuickAID kiosks were renamed CAIS IPORT Internet Stations after
their purchase this year by CAIS Internet, a major player in the
hotel Internet market (see "Get Connected," starting on page 91).
"Our model is providing a combination of kiosks and dataports,"
says CAIS spokesman Steve Wimsatt. "You can't download files from a
kiosk."
Global Digital Media's kiosk in the Philadelphia airport offers
wireless Internet service within 500 feet, and the company is
targeting Boston-Logan next.