AT&T Launches New Hotzones, Advances WiFi Strategy
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, July 26, 2010 · 
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AT&T announced today that it is expanding its WiFi hotspot initiative, launching another free “hotzone” in Charlotte, N.C., with another hotzone to be deployed in Chicago in the coming weeks.
AT&T initially launched its hotzone concept back in May with a massive network in New York City’s Times Square.
The free (if you are an AT&T customer) WiFi hotspots are intended to supplement AT&T’s mobile broadband coverage in areas with consistently high 3G traffic and mobile data use.
Despite these high-profile locations and deployments, AT&T is still calling this a “pilot project,” collecting and analyzing user data to determine whether this is a worthwhile endeavor.
AT&T is certainly committed to WiFi as a connection medium. The carrier is the largest WiFi operator in the world, with more than 20,000 WiFi hotspots through retailers such as Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and McDonalds, with all three now offering free Wi-Fi to any store patron.
Last week AT&T unveiled its latest quarterly statistics for Wi-Fi use, reporting a significant second-quarter increase in the number of WiFi connections, fueled by the rising number of customers with Wi-Fi enabled smartphones and devices, as well as an increasing number of businesses and venues offering Wi-Fi access for their customers.
In the second quarter, AT&T handled 68.1 million connections on its public Wi-Fi network — up from 15 million connections in the second quarter of 2009. Customers have made 121.2 million connections in the first half of 2010, already surpassing the 85.5 million connections made in all of 2009. Wi-Fi usage has seen steady and significant growth each quarter, including a nearly 30% increase from the first to second quarter of 2010.
“Wi-Fi plays an important role in AT&T’s strategy to mobilize everything for customers, complementing our wired and 3G wireless networks and bridging the gap between connectivity at home and on the go.” AT&T said in a release. ”
For more on AT&T’s hotzone strategy, see this release.
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