Filed in the Tech Category:
Boingo misscomunication, when flat fees are not so flat (update)
Posted by Mike on January 11th, 2008Update: I just received an email from Christian Gunning of Boingo clarifying the situation, and stating that if you indeed are on a Mobile or Global plan, you will not pay extra fees at premium locations, i.e. you can connect anywhere for the plan’s price, and no more. Only if you are on the Unlimited plan, and happen to come by one of the premium locations, you will pay the extra fee. Additionally, they will work on improving how the premium location fees are communicated to users, so as to not appear applicable to everyone. Their quick response is really appreciated, and the post will be ammended accordingly. I only wish they would have replied to an email I sent a couple of weeks ago requesting information about this, but in any case, the matter is clear now.
I was nicely surprised by a press release from Boingo, related to their offer of free WiFi connectivity to attendees of the Nokia World 2007 conference in Amsterdam, but when I read the end of the release, surprise turned to shock when I saw a not too well communicated statement:
If you search for WiFi locations on Boingo’s page, and for example, simply select ‘Spain’, the first results you see are these:
Note the ‘Premium Location – See details’ on each entry. If you click the details link, you are taken to this information page:
which informs you that the connection to this WiFi network will cost you $0.12 per minute, [Update: only if you are on the Unlimited plan].
This release caught my eye, as at Whisher we are working on a solution that will try to improve on this model, and give you convenient access at a very large number of locations (maybe even more than Boingo!). I cannot really blog about this yet, but I think if you use WiFi when traveling around, you will definitely like it.
Interestingly I have been billed for “premium” access while using hotspots in Toronto under the “Boingo Unlimited” North American plan. I believe this should not be the case. What makes this even more irritating is that when I called Boingo they informed me that these hotspots, the One Zone Metro WiFi Mesh Zone in Toronto, are premium locations. Curiously, there is no mention of “premium” or a “premium fee” in the Boingo directory. Not only is this misleading, it appears to me to be a cash grab from unsuspecting customers. However, I should point out that after arguing the point Boingo agreed to refund the charges for that hotspot (which, in reality, were only a few dollars).
David,
Strange, I thought unlimited applied to North America, but it seems they apply the term to United States, and thus Canada is considered “abroad”. Maybe I could interest you in testing Whisher with WiFi Out, we are doing a launch promotion where you can get free credit for testing, just join here:
http://www.whisher.com/freewifi
[...] seems that Boingo didn’t want to carry on improvements to their own hotspot finder service, which I wrote about a few months ago, and have chosen JiWire’s white-label service, found at http://boingo.jiwire.com. The maps [...]