AT&T's WiFi hot zone project has gone live in its second location, Charlotte, N.C. New York City's Time Square was first, and a Chicago deployment is coming in just weeks.
AT&T has deployed a WiFi
hot zone in Charlotte, N.C.-the second location in a pilot project designed to gain
consumer feedback about the use of WiFi to supplement the carrier's 3G mobile
broadband network.
The
first hot zone in the pilot went live in New York City's Time Square in June,
and the third will fire up in Chicago in "the coming weeks,"
AT&T said in a July 26 statement.
"Our first AT&T WiFi
hotzone in New York City has received praise from our
customers, and we're excited to introduce this WiFi solution in Charlotte," Angie Wiskocil,
AT&T senior vice president of WiFi Services, said in the statement. "WiFi
plays a key role in our strategy to mobilize everything that's important to our
customers-including entertainment, news, social networks and business apps.
With these pilot AT&T Wi-Fi hotzones, we're examining new ways to use a
combination of our WiFi and 3G networks to deliver the best possible mobile
broadband experience."
AT&T is the exclusive U.S. provider of Apple's iPhones-a
distinction that, while envious to other carriers, has also brought it
considerable criticism, as it has strained to meet the data-heavy demands of
its iPhone users, in addition to its full customer base. During AT&T's
fiscal second-quarter 2010 earnings announcement July 22, it
revealed
that it had activated 3.2 million iPhones during the quarter-27 percent of
which went to brand-new AT&T customers.
Also during its earnings
call, AT&T officials addressed the progress they have made in San Francisco and New York City-the company's two most
challenging coverage areas. With the WiFi hot zone pilot, AT&T is hoping to
gather information, collect customer feedback and ideally, in such highly
populated areas, relieve some of the burden on its 3G network.
AT&T currently offers
more than 20,000 mobile hot spots (analysts have put the figure at closer to
24,000) that AT&T customers can connect to automatically and free of
charge. As smartphone use in the United States has climbed, so has the
number of AT&T customers finally taking advantage of the service. In the
first quarter of 2010, AT&T saw 53.1 million connections made using the hot
spots-which was five times more than had been made during the same quarter a
year earlier. During the second quarter, that figure climbed to 68.1 million
connections.
Verizon
Wireless began following suit in December 2009, when it rolled out a WiFi
service in certain locations in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Though, unlike the AT&T
hot spots, which allow mobile phone calls, the Verizon service was limited to
devices such as laptops.
The newest AT&T hot zone-which
the carrier says emphasizes its commitment to investing in North Carolina-now covers an outdoor area
along South Brevard Street, "from the area around
the NASCAR Hall of Fame Plaza to East Trade Street," AT&T said in a
statement. It's said to also reach customers waiting to use the city's Lynx
light rail system.
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