Keep Boingo or not?
 

As some of you know I now have ATT Uverse, which I think allows me access to ATT Wifi-spots in Starbucks/McDonald's, etc, but not necessarily at airports etc.

Up to now I've had Boingo on the $9.95/mth forever plan offer they did last year (thanks to FT for the heads-up on that). Boingo definitely came in handy for the month that I was homeless and waiting to get into my new place, as I could access it at the local coffee shop, and there are airports like ORD etc that I use it at. Plus when I'm overseas if I need to use it it comes in handy (dif fees apply).

But now that I think I get the ATT wifi free, trying to decide whether it's worth it to keep Boingo. Any thoughts?

Cheers.

AT&T is great where they have coverage. I get it from my DSL account with them. But it's only useful where they have AT&T (which is a lot of places) but not everywhere. There are other times you may want to get online and can't use the AT&T.

Only you can say if it's worth it or not. But look at it this way. Even if you use it just once a month someplace, it's less expensive then having to get a daily pass to get online.

I would keep it for a few months, if you are not using it at all then get rid of it, but if you are you know it's all worth it.

I also have AT&T and find that my choices are limited with a wide range of travel destinations and would recommend keeping the Boingo service if you travel frequently.

Basic versus Premier
 

Sharon,

It's important to distinguish between AT&T Wifi "Basic" and "Premier". Have a look at the AT&T Wifi page. As an AT&T customer, I also get Basic for free and it isn't all that useful. However, AT&T customers can buy Premier for $10 a month; it has domestic + int'l + roaming coverage. For me, Premier is better than Boingo Limited ($10/month). For international, I've had surprisingly good luck with Premier, but I think Boingo Global ($60/ month) is better.

Thanks - didn't realize that ATT had 2-tiers, although their page shows Premier at $20/mth.

Cheers.

Wow...I had no idea that we get free Starbucks/McDonald's access since we have AT&T U-Verse.

Glad I opened this thread! :D

Now to figure out how to login at those places... I assume I have some sort of AT&T customer or billing ID somewhere... Guess I might want to actually look at my bill for a change. ;)

At an airport, I can tether my Palm Pre. (Finally - there's a published SDK and a couple of nice homebrew apps that enable tethering.) But I'd rather use WiFi for the faster speeds where it's available....plus, Sprint sends out nastygrams to people they think are tethering *too* much - more than a few gigs a month...

Yes, that's the price for non-AT&T customers.

Roaming Charges?
 

Despite looking at the AT&T website, I cannot determine if the Premier Plan includes international roaming without per minute roaming surcharges. Can anyone confirm that the Premier Plan allows unlimited use overseas without additional charges? Thanks.

I have used the Premier plan in Italy and the U.K. and have never incurred a usage charge.

Just as fyi - I was going to sign up for ATT Premier for the customer pricing, but they discontinued the customer pricing 8 months ago. So current or new customer it's $19.95/mth. They did confirm no surcharges overseas. I forgot to ask if ATT had a limit on minutes/month.

Also, Boingo's global $59 covers 2,000minutes/mth, which is basically 33 hours, which is basically 1/hour day/mth. Seems like if someone was overseas & online a lot, wouldn't take much to get through that - at least if they're surfing FT ;)

Cheers.