Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport boosting Wi-Fi speed

• The speed of the airport's free Wi-Fi will be increased from 1.5 megabits per second to 5 mbps.
• The service is provided by Boingo Wireless.
• Sky Harbor has offered free Wi-Fi service since 2005.

Sky Harbor International Airport's slow and often clunky free Wi-Fi service is getting a boost.

The airport plans to more than triple the speed by the end of the year to meet non-stop demand from travelers checking e-mail, Facebook and their favorite apps and websites. It is also making the  log in process easier.

When free Wi-Fi was introduced a decade ago, officials say, the technology landscape was vastly different, with laptops the main way travelers stayed connected at the airport. Today, two out of three users connect via mobile phone.

"Smartphones were not really in everyone's pocket at the time,'' said Paula Kucharz, acting deputy aviation director of business and properties.  "We were forced to kind of play catch up.''

The airport responded by adding the option of faster Wi-Fi service for a fee a year ago, with high connection speeds for those who want to stream videos, movies and music. It starts at $2.95 per hour.

Sky Harbor adds faster Wi-Fi -- for a fee

But travelers passing through Sky Harbor prefer the free Wi-Fi service 9 to 1, officials say.

"Our customers here at Sky Harbor, they love their free Wi-Fi,'' said Jeff Stapleton, a management assistant in the airport's business and properties division.

The speed of that service -- 1.5 megabits per second, versus 10 megabits for the first tier of the paid service -- has proven to be insufficient and has resulted in complaints and comments, airport officials say.

Reviews of the airport on Yelp routinely mention the free Wi-Fi from Boingo Wireless as a major plus at Sky Harbor but many of the same reviews note spotty service and slow speeds.

"The Wi-Fi is free but spotty and required constant re-authentication,'' a traveler from Orlando, Fla., said in a post on the review site in late September.

A traveler from Litchfield Park flew from Phoenix to San Francisco out of Terminal 4 in October and called the wi-fi "horrible'' in a review of the airport.

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In September, a passenger from Columbus called it "insufferable.''

"Free. Cool. But you can't get on,'' he wrote. "Why can't Wi-Fi be easier at U.S. airports?''

Sky Harbor officials say a survey of other major airports found several  with higher connection speeds on their free Wi-Fi, including Houston International (6 mbps), Los Angeles International (5 mbps) and Atlanta (5 mpbs). So they asked Boingo to upgrade the speed to 5 mbps and that process is underway now.

Boingo is getting a break on its airport rent in exchange for the $200,000 in improvements to beef up Sky Harbor's Internet service.

The other improvements include a new log in page that is much easier to navigate, whether using the free Wi-Fi (which requires users to watch a short video before each session) or paid Wi-Fi. The new display is already available for devices using Apple's iOS operating system and will be available on Android devices early next year.

Boingo is also adding more wireless access points so travelers who sign up for the Wi-Fi don't lose their connection when going through security or traversing the terninal walkways. And it has already increased the timeout period -- when idle computers lose service and users have to log in again -- from 10 minutes to 30 minutes.

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