Following on the heels of its acquisition of AdMob yesterday, Google today announced that it will foot the bill for free Wi-Fi access in airports across the country. The move represents a partnership with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and will continue through January 15, 2010. Google call the complimentary connection a holiday "gift" to travelers.

According to a press release the service will be available in 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely.

Google notes FAA estimates that show over 100 million people will pass through the participating airports between now and end date.

Travelers using the service will have the option to make a donation to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google says it will match the donations made across all the networks up to $250,000, and the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice.

The move by Google comes as businesses such as hotels, restaurants and coffee shops try to meet customer demand for free Wi-Fi access. To that end, Boingo, which will power most of the Wi-Fi networks under Google's gift, today released an announcement of a new program to offer "sponsored access Wi-Fi" in airports.

According to a press release from Boingo the new service presents a channel for brand owners to engage the hard-to-reach business professional in a captive environment by subsidizing complimentary Wi-Fi sessions in exchange for interacting directly with their brand.

Boingo says the campaigns typically offer travelers 15 to 20 minutes of complimentary Internet access in exchange for watching a 30-second video where the user is engaged directly with the brand. Other opportunities to engage consumers include lead generation, product and service trials, social media applications, location-based searches, customer surveys and downloadable content.

There was no word from Boingo or Google before press time as to whether Google's free holiday service would employ the "sponsored access" model.