The airport has an interesting history with Wi-Fi that I’ve been writing occasionally about since 2003: It’s a fairly small airport, not atypical for state and province capitals that tend to be located in politically expedient places that aren’t often also bustling metropolises compared to the big towns that developed in their political unit. (Olympia? Albany? Austin?)
Sacramento originally contracted with Airport Network Solutions, which said back in 2003 that it would cost $110,000 to add service. I noted in Aug. 2003 that without aggregation and resale they’d never recoup even the modest cost based on their assumptions of users and what they were charging for a day pass ($6.95). The airport apparently bore the cost of installation repaid out of fees rather than requiring its contractor to eat Capx, which is quite odd.
This is Madison’s fate as well. The economics will make it free over time – assuming we have wifi at the airport – some day.