ZDNet Australia's Angus Kidman reports that Australian discount carrier Virgin Blue is offering free Wi-Fi access in its business lounges in an attempt to attract customers away from rival airline Qantas.

"The discount carrier today relaunched its business traveller facilities in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane under the unimaginative branding The Lounge," Kidman writes. "Amongst the features of the new lounges is free wireless Internet access, provided by Telstra."

The challenge, Kidman notes, lies in keeping people outside the lounges from accessing the free service. "We are working with Telstra to limit it to The Lounge only and making that area an envelope in terms of being able to access it," says a Virgin Blue spokesperson.

"Some airlines rely on giving users one-time passwords as they enter a lounge to ensure freeloaders can't latch onto the network," Kidman writes. "Another possibility is to try and limit the wireless signal purely to the lounge area, but in practice that's likely to also create black spots with no signal inside the lounge. The simplest option would be to abandon the free option and charge customers. That's the route taken by Qantas, which offers wireless Internet access via Telstra in its rival Qantas Club lounges. Customers must pay access fees for the service, with casual access starting from 20 cents per minute."