WiFi set for landing

Logan International Airport will be hot today -- not just with temperatures forecast to be above 80, but with a new web of wireless Internet access hot spots blanketing all four terminals.

After more than a month of testing, Logan officials are launching a new two-tier WiFi service that will give travelers free access to flight schedules, airport information, and news headlines at LoganWiFi.com.

Unlimited access to the Internet will cost $7.95 a day; no hourly rate is offered.

The $2 million-plus telecommunications network that's powering the new WiFi access in terminals B, C, and D -- the international terminal, E, began offering WiFi in February -- will also support secure private wireless access for airlines, officials at the Boston airport, and State Police. They can use the network for everything from gaining access to law-enforcement databases to processing baggage.

As WiFi becomes an increasingly common -- but still pricey -- amenity for business travelers in places like airports, hotels, and convention centers, some industry analysts say Logan's mix of free and paid services may prove to be a popular new approach. The Manchester, N.H., airport, which began offering WiFi this month, offers a similar package of free airport and flight-delay information, with full Net access for $7 daily.

Rather than just take a cut of the revenue generated by a hot spot operator like T-Mobile USA or Wayport Inc., owners of locations with WiFi service may welcome the chance to use the WiFi service to advertise local companies, analysts said. Offering free content can also help to promote the paid WiFi service, by giving users a feel for how well it works.

''Once people use it and see it does do what it's promised to do, they're hooked," said John Yunker, a WiFi industry analyst with Byte Level Research in San Diego. ''Then the question is: What are they willing to pay for it?"

Pyramid Research of Cambridge forecasts that more than 15,000 commercial WiFi hot spots will exist throughout the United States and Canada by year's end, including nearly 5,600 set up by industry leader T-Mobile USA.

Last month, McDonald's Corp. said it plans to offer WiFi at 6,000 US restaurants by the end of next year in partnership with Wayport Inc. and SBC Communications Inc.

WiFi offers Net access at speeds up to 11 megabits per second within zones of 100 to 300 feet from a transmitter, called hot spots.

Overall, the industry continues to boom, but growth has been choppy in recent years, and the paid-service market is under growing pressure from free WiFi services offered by some hotels and restaurants -- and a few small-market airports -- as a perk that's designed to increase customer traffic.

AT&T Corp., which planned 20,000 hot spots in a joint venture with IBM Corp. and Intel Corp., called Cometa Networks, backed out of the deal in March and shut down Cometa, after concluding the business model would not work. Likewise, Verizon Communications Inc. has scaled back plans to offer WiFi through transmitters at pay phones in New York City, after deciding the cost of supplying electric power to the units was prohibitive.

''There is definitely a trend for WiFi to be more of a free service, something that you do as a cost of business to remain competitive," said Anshu Dua, a senior analyst at Pyramid. ''For Logan and other airports where there's such a big demand, I think they can afford to charge for WiFi access. But in cafes or other areas where they are serving more of a casual Internet user, I see the free model really prevailing."

Craig Coy, executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, said airport officials were eager to have WiFi service in place before next month's Democratic National Convention. Given that about 60 percent of Logan's passengers are business travelers, Coy said, making flight and airport data available through WiFi ''is part of our effort to provide information to our customers in as many ways as we can."

Francis Anglin, Massport's director of information technology, said the authority hopes to sign ''roaming" agreements soon with two or three national WiFi providers he declined to name. Subscribers to such services would get full Net access for free at Logan, included with their monthly or daily WiFi plan.

Massport is also looking into expanding WiFi coverage to its cruise ship terminal in South Boston and to Logan Express bus terminals in Braintree, Framingham, Peabody, and Woburn.

Coy said he is also interested in studying the cost and technological effectiveness of offering WiFi by satellite connection inside Logan Express buses, so that travelers could use the Internet from the time they arrive for the Logan bus until the moment they step on the plane.

The Logan WiFi service, built by Advanced Wireless Group LLC with Cisco Systems Inc. gear, includes more than 300 access points throughout the terminals, including systems designed to provide coverage for airline use on tarmacs.

Boston.com, the affiliated website of The Boston Globe and a fellow subsidiary of The New York Times Co., is providing news headlines and other data for the free Massport site.

While some airports are facing legal challenges because they have restricted WiFi to airport owned and operated services, Anglin said, ''If everyone just did their own thing, every service would interfere with each other and nothing would worked. These things had to be managed much more carefully, or there would be total chaos."

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.