Boingo Launches First Airport-Wide Wi-Fi 6 Network at São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport

Boingo Wireless announced the deployment of the first known airport-wide Wi-Fi 6 network at São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport (GRU). Boingo designed, installed and manages the carrier grade Wi-Fi 6 network, which utilizes the most advanced 802.11ax Wi-Fi technology and Passpoint to deliver passengers incredibly fast speeds and low latency.

The Wi-Fi 6 deployment at GRU is designed to enhance the experience of streaming and downloading movies, TV shows, music, games and other content on the go, while supporting online activities that include checking flight and weather updates, and new health and safety protocols. Subscribers of major telecom operators such as AT&T, Claro and Oi can automatically and securely connect to the GRU Wi-Fi 6 network.

“Boingo’s Wi-Fi 6 launch at GRU marks a major milestone for airport wireless in the 5G era, raising the bar for the connected travel experience,” said Boingo CEO Mike Finley. “Our converged, neutral host network offers passengers fast, free Wi-Fi and is engineered with Passpoint technology to enable carriers to seamlessly offload cellular traffic to the Wi-Fi 6 network.”

Boingo is the largest airport Wi-Fi provider in the Americas and has a large presence in Latin America, with service in more than 50 airports in Brazil. The company’s Wi-Fi 6 networks meet key 5G requirements to power a broad range of connected use cases in dense environments with greater capacity, speed and scalability. To effectively handle growing mobile traffic demands and accommodate future use cases such as intelligent edge applications, Boingo has architected its Wi-Fi 6 networks to increase bandwidth, enabling more devices to connect, and to lower latency, providing a quicker response time when accessing online applications.

“Passengers in GRU Airport can enjoy up to four hours of free Wi-Fi with fast speeds. It is a unique offering in the region. With the new Boingo Wi-Fi 6 solution, GRU will deliver even better service to passengers,” said Gustavo Figueiredo, GRU Airport´s CEO.

The busiest airport in South America, GRU serves the city of São Paulo, Brazil and has the passenger capacity of 50.5 million per year. Wi-Fi 6 is available throughout the public spaces in all GRU terminals. Boingo Wi-Fi 6 networks are backwards compatible with older generation Wi-Fi devices, including Wi-Fi 5.

GRU’s landmark airport-wide Wi-Fi 6 launch adds to Boingo firsts. In 2019, Boingo deployed the first known Wi-Fi 6 network at an airport, John Wayne Airport (SNA) in the U.S., supporting back-of-house operations in SNA’s administration building. Over its 20 year history, the company has also deployed pioneering firsts that include the first commercial DAS network, first Passpoint network, and first CBRS network at a major airport.