U.S. Airports Boost Their Wi-Fi to Improve Travelers’ Experience

Louisville Airport Upgrades Network to Wi-Fi 6

Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport needed to bolster its Wi-Fi because its existing Cisco APs, inherited from a third-party provider, were about a decade old.

While the airport has always managed its own in-house Wi-Fi for employees, a third-party provider previously offered passengers 20 minutes of free wireless, but it charged people for faster or longer service. 

In 2018, the airport took over and sought to upgrade its access points for the fastest Wi-Fi possible, Prince says.

“It was fast enough to work, but it wasn’t up to today’s standards,” he says.

To beef up the wireless, the airport standardized on Cisco Catalyst 9130AX Series Wi-Fi 6 APs and is doubling the number of access points from 36 to 72. That covers the entire 625,000-square-foot property, including terminals, administrative buildings, maintenance facilities and the fire station.

On a typical day, 5,500 to 7,000 passengers depart and arrive at SDF. But the airport authority’s IT department and its consultants designed the new wireless network to handle up to four times that number to accommodate its busiest day of the year, which is the Sunday after the Kentucky Derby, Prince says. In 2019, 28,000 passengers flew in and out of SDF the day after the race.

To manage the Wi-Fi, Prince installed two new Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series wireless controllers for redundancy. 

To protect internal applications and data, passengers and business guests of the ­airport authority will use the wireless in two separate service set identifiers that don’t touch the IT ­infrastructure. “It will be locked down and segregated for direct internet access,” Prince says.

To provide the best customer service, the public Wi-Fi network is on its own dedicated internet feed: a 2Gbps circuit. The wireless network, which was expected to go live in late 2021, will also remain free and unlimited.

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Tamp Airport Gets Access to Speedy New 5G Services

Tampa International Airport not only offers free, high-performance Wi-Fi but in late 2020 it also became the first airport in the country to offer mmWave 5G cellular service from the three major cellular carriers, including AT&T, airport officials say. 

In 2018, airport officials decided to install a distributed antenna system to improve cellular service. Previously, the airport relied on surrounding carrier tower networks, but that didn’t provide enough coverage and capacity, says Marcus Session, TPA’s vice president of IT services.

TPA worked with a communications infrastructure provider that built the DAS by installing 800 5G and 4G antennas and running about 50 miles of fiber and copper cables throughout the airport campus. Now, the three major cellular carriers have ­connected to it to provide significantly improved cellular service, Session says.

In January 2021, AT&T rolled out its 5G+ service at TPA and announced plans to make 5G+ available to additional airports over the next few years. The airport says Verizon and T-Mobile also began offering 5G service for its travelers in early 2021.

“We offer Wi-Fi, which is great, but it was important to provide a better experience on the carrier side of the house,” Session says. “Passengers may not want to take time to connect to Wi-Fi.”

EXPLORE: Follow these tips when building public Wi-Fi networks.

Delivering a Robust and Reliable Airport Wi-Fi Experience

To get on the Wi-Fi, users must click on a user agreement. TPA has deployed more than 430 Cisco Aironet 802.11n APs, which are managed by several wireless LAN controllers. The number of APs fluctuates at any given time because of airport construction, Session says. TPA’s Wi-Fi network is robust, with speeds averaging 2.32Gbps, but Session is researching the value proposition of Wi-Fi 6 for the future.

Overall, supporting fast and reliable mobile connectivity via Wi-Fi or 5G is important because guests must pull up their mobile flight information quickly on their smartphones, he says. In addition, today’s travelers have business productivity and entertainment needs that benefit from the faster speeds.

“When people come here, their phone is their comfort and can help reduce any anxiety they could have during travel. In a lot of cases, it has your life and everything else on it,” Session says. “We want to make sure we provide the same level or better experience at the airport than they have at home.”