Boingo & GoGo Unite, But Ignore Your Air Travel Wi-Fi Woes

Budget conscious Wi-Fi addicts have for some time faced a dilemma when traveling by airplane: Should they pay Boingo to use the Wi-Fi on the ground or pay GoGo to use it in the sky?
On Monday, Boingo provided a glimmer of hope for seamless Wi-Fi when it announced that its customers would now be able to log into GoGo using their existing Boingo accounts.
But users will benefit from the relationship only by avoiding the hassle of maintaining two separate accounts. GoGo’s in-flight Wi-Fi is not included in Boingo’s unlimited monthly subscriptions, and users will be charged for a $5 to $13 GoGo flight pass regardless of which plan they have with the startup’s grounded rhyming counterpart.
While the partnership might not be the unification of airport and airplane Wi-Fi we’ve been hoping for, it does make good business sense.
Boingo will add more than 1,100 planes from nine carriers to its list of Wi-Fi hotspots, thereby providing what is, according to a statement, their most-requested service enhancement.
Meanwhile, GoGo gets access to the customer base that Boingo has established with hotspots in 60 airports that cover 40% of all passenger traffic in North America.