Q&A with Boingo Wireless' Sky Dayton

Sky Dayton, founder of Earthlink (ELNK ), the No. 3 Internet service provider in the U.S., was installing a Wi-Fi network in his house when he came up with a bold idea: If this wireless standard was spreading around the world, wouldn't there be a role for a service company to aggregate all the hot-spots and turn them into a network, so that users can hook up to Wi-Fi everywhere?

That thought led to Boingo Wireless, Dayton's Santa Monica (Calif.) Wi-Fi company. He wasn't alone -- a year ago, AT&T (T ), Intel (INTC ), and IBM (IBM ) plowed into the same market with a joint venture, Cometa. But in May, with Cometa struggling to build a viable business, the partners pulled the plug. Dayton recently spoke by phone with BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker about the state of the market today. Following are edited excerpts of their conversation: