“AT&T Inc. agreed Thursday to acquire closely held Wayport Inc. for $275 million, extending its Wi-Fi reach amid growing demand from customers for wireless Internet access,” Andrew Lavallee reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The deal expands AT&T’s hot spots — areas where customers can tap into Wi-Fi networks — to 20,000 in the U.S. That includes the networks Wayport operates at Wyndham, Marriott Vacation Club and Four Seasons hotels as well as McDonald’s Corp. restaurants,” Lavallee reports.
“AT&T is seeing big gains in wireless-data revenue and strong sales of Internet-enabled devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone,” Lavallee reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Last Wednesday, AT&T announced free Wi-Fi access for Apple iPhone across U.S.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
iPhone will be the number 1 smartphone very soon…
Woooo! Free Wi-fi at McDonald’s! :-\
WiFi helps take some of the stress off cellular networks.
Eventually a blanket of free WiFi will distinguish the most desirable cities.
As the proud owner of a 1st gen iPhone, bring on the WiFi. Although Edge seems faster since the last update.
~M
White Space!
What’s totally retarded about this is that they make you sign into a browser with your phone number first — it’s completely non-intuitive and a waste of time. Why not just allow access instantly to anyone using the iPhone platform?
“Eventually a blanket of free WiFi will distinguish the most desirable cities.”
Except that I am hearing that many of the “free” w-fi experiments are being dropped due to “cost”
Hmm…..thought that was not supposed to be possible. Thought we could just vote and make something “free”
Free is never free, it’s just a matter of who you vote to shift the cost to and how long they will tolerate it.
Like “free” medical care.
If you think that AT&T;(or a city) has not built the cost of that into services that they charge you for, you don’t know how life works.
If YOU use something, YOU should pay for it.
“If YOU use something, YOU should pay for it.”
That doesn’t sound very patriotic
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I say just pass the cost on to “rich people”.
.
From the real kenh:
RE: “That doesn’t sound very patriotic”
Not by the new political definition, but that is not the one I go by. The one I go by is the one that has stood the test of time, just like every truth eventually must.
Pass it on to the “rich”? Ok, we can make the political decision to do that, but it wlll all come to roost when the “rich”, who are the ones who employ all of us, decide they can’t afford the extra cost and make the unemployment roles go even higher than they are now.
Hey, I used to own a business. It made money when my wife and I were the only employees. Every time we added an employee, things got worse, so we sold the company to another couple, who kept it that size, and GUESS WHAT, are making money.
Thats ok AL Gore, and @kenh: I could see the irony there, so no offense.
clarification in wording” when we sold the company to a couple, they kept it as a couple, like we did when we made money.
Not to imply that the other couple bought the company, kept the employees and made money when we could not. They knew what they needed to do to make it profitable.
How in the hell did this turn into a political discussion? Take it somewhere else, guys. I’ve had enough this week.
… But what I wanted to say is that, meanwhile, Rogers will begin charging for their free hotspots at the end of December….
Of course AT&T;gives free wi-fi to iPhone users. What could be a better money maker than charging every user the mandatory high fees for unlimited data transfer and then “allowing” them to use wi-fi and not even have to use their network? Disgusting.