Whats the Boingo and T-Mobile Deal Mean, Anyway?
A colleague and I wrote back and forth about the deal announced yesterday that puts Boingo clients on T-Mobile’s customers’ computers — but doesn’t merge networks. He said, Today, when I sit down in Starbucks, Boingo pops up and associates me with a T-Mobile hotspot. I type my password into the Web page that automatically shows up, and T-Mobile charges me. He asked, what changes with the new deal? Boingo is a software company disguised as a network company, so that’s the confusion. Boingo has a software product that works on clients and a server product that works on back-office stuff. The client software sniffs and detects any network connections, but identifies those that are part of its network — whether that’s Boingo’s own branded service if you’re using Boingo service or T-Mobile or some other company if you’re using a “skinned” Boingo client that belongs to them. When you are on Boingo’s network of partner hot spots, you don’t sign onto an access point and then a Web page. You
