Port Authority’s Airports to Get Free Wi-Fi

The New York City region’s major airports will finally offer free Wi-Fi to travelers, but the generosity has a time limit: 30 minutes. Amid a spate of calls to upgrade its facilities -- Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently likened La Guardia Airport to the hub of a “third world country” -- the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey approved a measure that it said would bring the airports into conformity with others around the globe, at least on this count.

Under a modified agreement with Boingo, a wireless Internet provider, travelers will receive 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi and then can pay for
additional access “in hourly, daily or monthly increments,” the agency said. A Boingo subsidiary will pay an estimated $3.8 million “to support the upgrade,” the authority said, recouping the expense “through a cost-share arrangement with the Port Authority.”