Here is a nice holiday gift from Google. The company will provide free Wi-Fi at US airports through January 15, 2010.

AT&T said on Thursday that it was buying wi-fi provider Wayport for for approximately $275 million in cash. This acquisition will increase AT&T's wi-fi hotpot footprint from some 17,000 to about 20,000 nationwide. It will also up AT&T hotspot total to 80,000 (up from 70,000) globally.

A study conducted by Wakefield Research for the Wi-Fi Alliance (go figure) indicates that college students now feel that wi-fi is nearly indispensible for their coursework.

Rooting out Wi-Fi "dead zones" in large wireless networks that cover whole neighborhoods or cities is an expensive proposition. Pre-deployment testing is so costly that most WiFi providers simply build their networks first and fill in the gaps later. But even that isn't easy, due to the paucity of inexpensive techniques for mapping out precisely which areas lack coverage.

There are tons of coffee shops and cafes offering free wi-fi, and Starbucks has been feeling a little green with envy over all those people sitting there surfing the web - and buying nothing. Still, on Tuesday, Starbucks began offering free wi-fi, with some limitations.

The San Francisco Bay Area's BART system (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is in talks with WiFi Rail, Inc., to provide system-wide wi-fi service after a successful trial program. Phase three of the demonstration program recently completed, and in a small blurb on WiFi Rail's home page, the company said:

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) today announced the beginning of the rollout of AT&T Wi-Fi service at company-operated Starbucks stores, kicking off a nationwide effort that will continue through 2008.

In January, Skyhook Wireless Inc. announced that Apple would use Skyhook’s WiFi Positioning System (WPS) for its popular Map applications. The WPS database contains information on access points throughout the world.

To help California residents affected by the fires stretching across Southern California, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced that AT&T Wi-Fi service will be offered free of charge at nearly 600 hot spot locations across Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Orange and Ventura counties.