This is an update of an old post.
____ original from April 10th, 2011:
I’ve been a Boingo member in the past.
… a private company that provides global Wi-Fi services at more than
125,000325,000 Boingo hotspots worldwide – including hundreds of airports, thousands of hotels, and tens of thousand cafes and coffee shops. …Though signup is seamless, canceling the service requires a call into customer services. …
It works. But there are some deceptive billing practices. At times you THINK you are logging into your Boingo account, but in reality it’s some ‘premium’ partner. … At the end of the month you find you’ve been billed extra. Without warning.
UPDATE:
Baochi from Boingo responded instantly to this post. (They really do have superb customer support.)
Due to complaints like mine, Boingo has improved the notification that you are going to get DINGED for an extra (unknown) amount. It now looks like this:
The premium locations that incur additional charges are available by default. … Perhaps they should be OFF by default, and only turned on by two or three clicks.
Certainly every month Baochi gets complaints from customers charged more than their expected monthly total. Most cannot recall clicking on any premium locations. They were in a rush, and didn’t pay attention to that text.
If you travel, you could get good value. … On the other hand, since Starbucks went free, I’ve not needed a paid subscription. And don’t plan to get one in future. Starbucks has a strong WiFi signal 99% of the time. Many Boingo hotspots cannot stream a YouTube video.
However, Boingo’s now released a brilliant FREE service that I recommend for everyone.
A FREE app that helps you find and locate FREE and Boingo hotspots at thousands of locations worldwide.
Click PLAY or see how it works on YouTube.
Download it here.
Choose Windows, Mac, iPhone / iPad, or Android.
Every time you open up your computer in a new location, the app will tell you if there’s free Wi-Fi available.
Brilliant.
After testing it the past couple of weeks in California and Nevada, I’m getting about 70% false positives. The app says there is free WIFi … but that’s not true. I’ve deleted the app on my laptop.
__________________________
For example, in the case of Starbucks (log-in required) it gets it wrong.
I have to find the Starbucks log-in page. And log-in, as usual.
Rick McCharles 
Hi Rick,
I’m so happy to hear that you’re excited about Wi-Finder. 🙂
I’m Baochi, and I manage the social media program at Boingo.
The idea with Wi-Finder is to get you connected to Wi-Fi wherever you are, free or 325,000 Boingo hotspots. There’s a crowd sourcing aspect that relies on the Wi-Fi community. e.g., letting us know about free hotspots you discover that aren’t yet in our database and letting us know about the quality of the connection in specific hotspots so that info is available to everyone via the app.
On another note, I’m very sorry that you had a negative experience with us, and I’d like to provide some possible answers to what happened based on what you’ve written above.
It sounds to me that you had a Boingo Unlimited plan, which is a 9.95 laptop monthly plan for unlimited access in North and South America.During the signup process, we let you know three times that you’re selecting a monthly subscription and that you’ll be charged for connecting in premium locations, e.g., Europe or Asia: http://bit.ly/fNUCVK.
If you’re unsure whether you’re in a premium hotspot, the app always notifies you you’re in a Premium location, and then it doesn’t connect you unless you select Login. Take a look at the screenshots here: http://bit.ly/csOSnh.
BTW, our Global plan, as well as our Mobile plan is for unlimited access with no premium fees.
I’m happy to talk more about your Boingo experience and hear more details about what happened. And definitely, we have no problem refunding any unfair charges to your past bills.
Thank you again for giving your seal of approval on Wi-Finder – it totally makes our day. 🙂 As always, we look for feedback on improvements.
Best,
Baochi
bnguyen@boingo.com
Hi Rick,
Speaking of quick responses — thank you for yours!
We hear you about how rushed customers may click on Login and overlook the notification of a premium location. Your suggestion — provide a setting that allows customers to turn off notifications period in premium hotspots — is a very good one. I’ll make sure the Product team gets your feedback. 🙂
BTW, I noticed your mention about the inability to stream YouTube at Boingo hotspots. Any details you can provide(device, location, frequency) would be appreciated. The quality of your experience doesn’t sound like our standard of service, so we want to be aware of areas that need fixing.
Let me know if I can help you select the best Wi-Fi plan should you need our services during your travels.
Best,
Baochi
Last year in Europe I recall generally bad WiFi, both free and Boingo locations.
The USA is better. But overall I find about 1/3 of WiFi locations will not stream YouTube. Or something else goes wrong.
I call it the “myth of wireless internet”.
My buddy who runs cabling at U of Alberta tells me wireless is hopelessly unreliable. I agree.
WILL start tracking bad locations in future. I use iStumbler to test speed of WiFi. (Not perfect, but better than nothing.)