AT&T ups its global WiFi ante

AT&T wants to make its WiFi more accessible to business road warriors, remote employees and mobile consumers with the addition of about 25,000 WiFi hotpots in various European countries and China. With the addition of these new locations, AT&T will now have 125,000 hot spots worldwide, a 30 percent expansion of its WiFi footprint since the beginning of 2009.

Any AT&T Remote Access enterprise customer now will be able to get a direct connection to their respective enterprise network across Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Croatia, The Netherlands, the UK and China. Already, the China WiFi hot spots are active, while the new European locations will go live in about a month. Customers will find these hot spots in typical areas including coffee shops, bookstores, hotels, airports, restaurants and convention centers.

AT&T, in parallel with Verizon's campaign to provide an additional 100,000 hot spots to its wireline FiOS customers, has continued to expand its WiFi footprint. Although Verizon does offer WiFi-capable phones, one apparent difference here is that Verizon's latest WiFi expansion mainly was targeted at its wireline customers. This expansion into China and Europe comes not long after AT&T reported that it had about 15 million WiFi connections to its U.S. network in the second quarter, a 41 percent increase over the first quarter.

For more:
- see the release here

Related articles
Qwest to offer AT&T Wi-Fi to broadband customers
AT&T, Verizon bolster WiFi offerings