Friday, July 18,2008 @ 10:40am
AT&T confirms free Wi-Fi for iPhone owners [u]
(Updated with AT&T denial) AT&T has, after some delay, officially reintroduced a free Wi-Fi plan for iPhone owners. The carrier has changed its policy on the service several times, announcing it and then retracting it; the company now confirms, though, that people should be able to access free Wi-Fi from an iPhone at over 17,000 hotspots, among them more than 8,000 restaurants, many of which should be Starbucks Coffee locations.
AT&T has placed further routers in over 700 bookstores, 50 groceries, 31 hotels and 23 universities. Other locations are fairly limited, including 18 convention centers, 12 airports and just five sports arenas.
Update: An AT&T spokesman, Seth Bloom, now says that the webpage was posted in error. "We have not made any announcement regarding free Wi-Fi and iPhone," Bloom observes. The page has since been pulled, though Bloom does note that the company hopes to have free Wi-Fi in the future. "Wi-Fi is a real differentiator for AT&T and it is our intention to make it available to as many customers as possible," he says.