Our intrepid leader, Dave Hagan, graces the cover of this month’s CEA magazine, Vision. In the feature interview, Dave — a four-year veteran of CEA’s board — talks about the evolution of Boingo’s business model, his thoughts on the burgeoning use of Wi-Fi on consumer electronic devices (especially where the usage would overwhelm 3G), and his vision for Boingo’s current and future role in the CE ecosystem. 
Some highlights:
- On Boingo’s key value proposition: “…we take advantage of the opportunity of Wi-Fi chips being embedded into every type of electronics product on the market by making it easier for people to get these devices connected…Boingo’s role in the ecosystem is to make it easy for consumers with these electronic products to get connected…quickly and simply.”
- On Boingo’s plans for network expansion: “The networks we own and operate are mostly in airports. We are expanding into other types of venues. We have done a couple of arenas recently and also are working on shopping malls.”
- On Wi-Fi advantage over cellular: “The teenager that goes to watch a video on a 3G network where there are a lot of other people doing similar things – there is just not enough bandwidth to do it well. Wi-Fi has a huge amount of bandwidth and very small cell sites, it’s a microcell. That is the magic of it. You can’t over-power it physically because the cell is so small only so many people can get in that small of a space vs. a cell tower covering miles. You can obviously over-load a sector of a cell site pretty easily.”
- On the culture at Boingo: “Our people work hard. They spend a lot of time at the office…if you spend a lot of time doing something, it had better be fun. We have contests and do creative things to keep people excited…it’s about smart people and good ideas.”
We’re beaming with pride. Way to go, boss (and not a bad picture, either)!
Read the entire article here.
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