theregoesdave

This week at CTIA, wireless access aggregator Boingo announced a new partnership with Fring to bring chat and instant messenger services to their users. Boingo allows frequent travelers to pay one monthly service charge to access dozens of wifi hotspots at airports and locations like McDonalds.

In February Boingo announced that they were releasing an application for Windows Mobile 6 users to log into their network at a reduced monthly charge. This allows you to use over 60 thousand wireless access points on your Pocket PC for $7.95 per month! In my experience, wifi on a PDA can still be a very trying experience. Often the drivers for phones make connecting to some access points nearly impossible, and even so the battery drain makes wifi a short-term solution. However, I think that as mobile web usage grows and the power consumption goes down we should see a huge spike in this segment.

Read on about the new partnership:

The partnership with Fring takes Boingo even another step beyond the market. Fring is going to help build chat, IM and hopefully VOIP into the Bongo client. This combines network access with a free Windows Mobile IM and VOIP client. This is a really interesting partnership for a few reasons:

• Windows Mobile handsets have limited processor resources, so combining two important functions into one client greatly increases the chances of getting Boingo installed on people’s phones.
• VOIP only becomes really useful when you have an internet connection basically everywhere. I’m not sure we’re there yet, but Boingo is ahead of the market.
• They have one of the most extensive wifi networks in the marketplace today (see above).

This is a really great strategic move on the part of both companies. Hopefully they’re just not too far ahead of their time!

• Fring brings VoIP to the iPhone, at least over Wifi
• Test Driving Boingo Mobile
• The Race is on for an Android Skype or VoIP Client