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05/22/2006: "Boingo now has 6X the airports of Wayport"

Boingo, the original "we don't own infrastructure" wireless company, now has a total of 12 airports after buying out Concourse Communications Group. The airports now operated by Boingo include: JFK (NYC), LaGuardia (NYC), Newark (New Jersey, but services the NYC area), Minneapolis-St. Paul, and O’Hare and Midway (both Chicago), Toronto, Ottawa, Detroit, Oklahoma, Nashville and Atlanta.

Wayport has three: San Jose, Seattle, and Austin. [Update: Wayport lost Seattle years ago, so they only have two airports.] Wayport still claims to have D/FW, LaGuardia and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but the DFW install has been shut down for almost a year, while the relationship with Councourse has been over for 2.5 years:


"Beginning Oct. 1, 2003, Wayport's Wi-Fi service unfortunately will no longer be available at LaGuardia (LGA) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) airports. Despite efforts by Wayport and Concourse Communications, Wayport's Wi-Fi partner at these airports, we are unable to continue the relationship, in part because Wayport feels that the proposed terms provided by Concourse are not feasible."

(Those of you good at math will note that it didn't last seven months.)

That same PDF claims that Wayport operates a wireless network at Oakland, but I've never seen it. Wayport does offer "Laptop Lane" services at Oakland and other airports, but these don't (and can't) offer WiFi coverage throughout the terminal. [Clarifcation: Glenn Fleischman reports that Wayport can offer WiFi from the Laptop Lane locations. Still, this doens't cover much of Oakland's airport.]

What are we to say about a company that advertises things they don't have?

"More than four years of direct usage data showed us that high-traffic airports are the single most valuable venue for Wi-Fi usage and customer acquisition," said David Hagan, president and CEO of Boingo Wireless. "Concourse is the unquestionable leader in domestic high-traffic airports; their commitment to neutral-host systems and high-quality airport installations are a perfect complement to both our retail and platform service lines of business."

Wayport could have been (should have been) the leader in the airport space, but for the ignorance of one man, Wayport's CEO, Dave Vucina. In private conversationqs, Vucina claims that airports aren't as valuable as Wayport's traditional locations (hotel rooms, the UPS store, Hertz Rental Cars and that place that sells Big Macs), and these "facts" are oft-repeated inside the company.

But check the text of the Press Release:

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2006--Boingo Wireless, Inc., the world's leading wholesale Wi-Fi network aggregator, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Concourse Communications Group LLC, the leading operator of neutral-host wireless access systems. J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. acted as advisor to Boingo for the transaction. Terms of the deal were not announced.

The acquisition means Boingo will operate Concourse's neutral-host networks in 12 leading US airports, including three New York city airports: JFK, LaGuardia and Newark; two Chicago airports: O'Hare and Midway; and other top 100 airports including Toronto, Ottawa, Detroit, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Nashville and Atlanta. These 12 networks represent 54% of enplanements among North America's top 100 airports, and 27% of all North American enplanements.

I think Boingo is onto something, something Vucina chose to ignore.

What most people don't know is that Concourse's original offices were located in One World Trade Center (one of the Twin Towers), and that the New York Port Authority was somehow mixed-up deep in CCG's finances:

Other income (expense) for 2001 also includes $7.0 million related to the write-down of a loan to Concourse Communications, Inc., an affiliate of the Company which provides in-building antenna sites primarily in airports and other public sites in New York City.


SpectraSite announced Sep. 12 it has sold its interest in Concourse Communications Group, a firm that develops shared wireless tenant infrastructure systems in U.S. airports. SpectraSite probably didn’t get much from the sale but the move should help the company improve its cost structure as its restructuring efforts continue.
Concourse was established to build wireless infrastructure at facilities owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, including the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, World Trade Center Concourse and New York's three major airports.
SpectraSite purchased a 33% interest in Concourse in Sep. 1999 for $2.5 mil., agreeing at the time to provide $14.4 mil. in working capital and construction financing to Concourse in the form of secured loans over a three-year period. But in March 2002 SpectraSite said in its 10-K that it had written off $7 mil. related to the Concourse loan.
Terms of the divestiture, including the buyer, were not disclosed; however, given the loan writedown in April it’s unlikely SpectraSite got much for its Concourse holdings.

link.