6,000 New WiFi Hotspots From SBC

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Aug/gee20030807021199.htm">http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Aug/gee20030807021199.htm</a><br /><br />"SBC, a leading voice, data, and Internet services company, has announced that it plans to provide Wi-Fi access in over 6,000 venues by the end of 2006. The majority of the venues within SBC's 13 state region will be geared towards business travelers, located in hotels, airports, and convention centers. The network, which will utilize more than 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to service the venues, will be called FreedomLink." :rock on dude!: <br /><br />They will need to get their pricing right though. "Gartner analyst Bill Clark figures it will be approximately US$7 for a day, $40 for a month." :roll: The per month fee might be reasonable but they will never garner the casual user that frequents a hotspot 3-4 times a month at $7/day.

[easylife]

Well, the T|Mobile hotspots charge 10¢ per minute, one hour minimum billing = $6 with $1 for each additional 10 minutes. Now the $7 is starting to seem reasonable... 8)

[beq]

(OT) Incidentally IIRC SBC was the big winner by far recently in terms of DSL subscribers added...

I have cable myself :)

[disconnected]

What would make these services more attractive is some sort of not-too-expensive roaming agreement among all the providers.

[gorkon280]

SBC has a great price! 7 a day is beter then most of them are doing it already. The Hyatt I'll be staying at in DC will charge me 9.99 a day for wifi in my room(if I can GET a room with Wifi). That's not too bad either. Either ya need it or you don't. I personally am going to be investing money in a T-Mobile GPRS card. 29.99 per month for internet anywhere in T-Mobile's coverage area is good! Now where's my PC Card sleeve! :)

[rmasinag]

I bet none of those 6,000 spots include Hawai'i :cry:

Always the case.

Also, I think pay per day would not be practical until it costs $5/day instead of $7/10 T-mobile is $10/day at Borders :evil:

[easylife]

I bet none of those 6,000 spots include Hawai'i :cry:

Nope, it's a belt across the United States according to the article. :cry: I'm waiting for more in Maine too...

O/T - I didn't know Hawaii was spelled with an apostrophe! 8) Neat!

[pivaska]

I have a Panera Bread that is a free hotspot. I don't know if they are all like that but I'd rather go there than the Starbucks that is located about 150 feet south of it or any SBC site.

[rmasinag]

None of the Starbucks in Hawai'i (about 20 in O'ahu alone) have WiFi! :evil:

What is it with wireless and living on a rock? :?:

[Kiyoshi]

SBC is a midwestern company (I think) so I heard that there were gonna be a bunch of these hotspots throughout the midwestern region (I read this in the Chicago Tribune, they had an article about Wi-Fi today). I live right by Chicago, IL, but I'd rather use free Wi-Fi. I've used public Wi-Fi once last week at a Panera in Michigan. Thank god I brought my Wi-Fi card with me on vacation!

*OFF-TOPIC*

The apostrophe is put in Hawai'i because you're supposed to pronounce the vowels separately rather than saying "Huh-why-ee"

[JonnoB]

What is it with wireless and living on a rock? :?:

I would trade wireless access for comfortable island living anytime !

[beq]

Thanks to deregulation, SBC is just soo huge. They gobbled up our Southwestern Bell years back...

[rmasinag]

O/T O/T

Hawaiian langguage has no W only V so in "Hawai'i" the W is pronounced V
V

So.. more like Ha-va-ee :)

[MultiMatt]

I can't remember the guy's name, but the dude who invented the cell phone was recently quoted as saying that WiFi was like a phone booth.
"Oh I can get a connection right down the road, dude!"
He's absolutely right! While I thoroughly enjoy connecting to 802.11 hotspots, they are still so scarce that there is no way I can count on 802.11 connectivity while on the road.
Until WiFi becomes as ubiquitous as wireless, I am going to pursue other, more consistent methods of connectivity:
http://www.pocketpclouisville.com/images/TheNextBigThing_smaller.jpg

It might not be as pretty as an iPAQ, but I'm switching over to the Samsung i700, and I'm going to enjoy what all the folks on AT&T and T-Mobile have been doing for over a year now - being TRULY connected!

Matt

[SassKwatch]

They will need to get their pricing right though. "Gartner analyst Bill Clark figures it will be approximately US$7 for a day, $40 for a month."
I had a source tell me recently that SBC had plans to make at least some of their territory *very* plentiful with WiFi hotspots. And the good part.......access to those hotspots would be free to current SBC DSL subscribers.

I don't recall the source mentioning a time frame for implementation, but have to wonder if it wouldn't fall in roughly the same as this article. Also mentioned that Verizon was planning to do the same...and was actually ahead of SBC for rollout. As I recall, V was at/near the end of their testing phase and gearing up to begin rolling out in the not too distant future.

[ctmagnus]

What is it with wireless and living on a rock? :?:

I was going to answer that with a smart-alec remark about Bill Weicking (the guy who's trying to network one of the islands) but the original article has since gone for-pay so you can check out this (http://www.webpronews.com/2002/0402.html) (scroll down a bit) or this (http://www.workingwireless.net/wireless/Documents/webs/kohala_wireless.html) instead. :wink:

And there's also his Google (http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient-menuext&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Bill+Wiecking) as well.

[ricksfiona]

What is it with wireless and living on a rock? :?:

I would trade wireless access for comfortable island living anytime !
Amen to that.

[ricksfiona]

6,000 WiFi locations by 2006? That's quite ambitious considering T-Mobile now has 2,000 locations. Taking that number into account, 6,000 is a marketing thing.

$7 for a FULL day of WiFi access? Sure, that will work. Especially if you're a business user. Considering that a movie is $10 and I can get much more out of Internet access for the day than most movies. $10 isn't too bad either.

The more WiFi spots the better. I hope the vendors have roaming agreements and price that into their plans.

[pivaska]

I forgot to mention that even my local 2 year college, Haper College in Palatine Illinois has free WiFi anywhere on campus. Just tried it again yesterday as I was coming home from helping a friend with her pc. I stopped in the parking lot, linked up and had my choice of several different connections.

Sometimes life just doesn't get any better