Free AT&T Wi-Fi Access for iPhones

[frankfurter]

So what?

Why do people get so worked up over this? I actually have a life, and don't spend inordinate amounts of time at Starbucks or Barnes & Noble.

Guess what else? McDonalds has free Wi-Fi, as does Burger King. I've found it at various restaurants around town, including doctors offices, hospitals, and Best Buy, even little gift shops and grocery store.

So again - so what.....

 

[avalys]

I thought those were T-Mobile hotspots at Starbucks?

 

[Telp]

Wow this is great news!! The two places I wish i had more than EDGE (seeing as i dont get great service at the barnes and noble and Starbucks that I normally go to. Can't wait to try this out. Hope it works here too.

 

[PlaceofDis]

I thought those were T-Mobile hotspots at Starbucks?

last paragraph:

AT&T recently partnered with Starbucks to provide Wi-fi access to Starbucks' 7000 stores nationwide. This partnership allowed existing AT&T broadband customers free access and AT&T promised that it would "soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers", but no official announcement has yet been made.

AT&T took over recently

 

[eatmoreramen]

I work for both Apple and Starbucks in Pennsylvania haha

I noticed it today for the first time in my Starbucks.

The free wi-fi for customers has not yet started though.

 

[twoodcc]

another reason to have AT&T!

 

[Van Wildonher]

I don't see how anyone could complain about this.

 

[aristobrat]

Guess what else? McDonalds has free Wi-Fi, as does Burger King.

Hey, guess what? Neither of them offer free WiFi here in Virginia's biggest metro area. Nor is it as easy to find an open access point around town as it apparently is in your neck of the woods.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Why do people get so worked up over this? I actually have a life, and don't spend inordinate amounts of time at Starbucks or Barnes & Noble.

Guess what else? McDonalds has free Wi-Fi, as does Burger King. I've found it at various restaurants around town, including doctors offices, hospitals, and Best Buy, even little gift shops and grocery store.

So again - so what.....

You beat me to it. Free WiFi is hardly a novelty any longer; in fact, it is rapidly becoming the norm. The reality is, limiting WiFi access to iPhone users is downright chintzy.

 

[cloudnine]

You beat me to it. Free WiFi is hardly a novelty any longer; in fact, it is rapidly becoming the norm. The reality is, limiting WiFi access to iPhone users is downright chintzy.

Actually, not to be difficult, but the opposite is true. Free Wi-Fi is becoming more and more scarce (at least here in the San Francisco Bay Area) because people will come into a coffee shop, plug in their laptop, and sit there for the entire day doing their work, surfing, whatever... and pay for only one cup of coffee. The power utilized by that person costs the coffee shop more than the one cup of coffee, not to mention that it detracts other customers because of the lack of seating.

There's a great article about it here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/11/MNGKKOCBA645.DTL

 

[nyquist11]

I like this bc at some airports it costs tons to get wi-fi now all they have to do is let me connect my MBP 4 free

 

[dacreativeguy]

Does anybody know if the wifi can be accessed with an ipod touch?

Probably not, unless your touch has a phone number.

 

[cameronjpu]

You beat me to it. Free WiFi is hardly a novelty any longer; in fact, it is rapidly becoming the norm. The reality is, limiting WiFi access to iPhone users is downright chintzy.

I don't know where you live, but I'm seeing the exact opposite. More and more people are wising up to the fact that everyone is mooching off their wifi. Hell, I was in Costa Rica on vacation last weekend and unsecured wifi was scarce. I definitely disagree that free open wifi hotspots are becoming more common.

 

[sfbayrealtor]

Yup, just tested it near a starbux in Pleasanton, CA.

Yup, just tested it near a starbux in Pleasanton, CA. I was actually in the Safeway nextdoor and got enough signal to login....gratis

no complaints here! way to go starbucks+att+apple.

 

[cloudnine]

Yup, just tested it near a starbux in Pleasanton, CA. I was actually in the Safeway nextdoor and got enough signal to login....gratis

no complaints here! way to go starbucks+att+apple.

Sweet! That's great to hear (I'm in Dublin... haha)

 

[cloudnine]

Now if only there was a way to login with your notebook just because you have an iPhone heh.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

A side bit of goodness is that I am an AT&T DSL customer who happens to also own an iPod touch (not iPhone). In any event, I went by Starbucks today discovered the AT&T Wi-Fi connection in my settings, chose that, input my AT&T email address and password, and woila, FREE Wi-Fi on my iPod touch. Very cool.

Mark
--
Read: iPhone SDK - Mobile reasons for optimism
http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2008/03/mobile-reasons.html

Exactly the same case for me, at the Spring Hill RT 50 Starbucks here in Florida, I gave my AT&T phone number, and I was in

 

[snberk103]

Just a bit of gloating - but off topic

Free WiFi? I live on one of the Southern Gulf Islands, off the west coast of Canada. In town every coffee shop, and most of the pubs have free WiFi. You can pick up a multitude of open hotspots sitting in the middle of the main road. A large portion of the population don't have broadband at home, not because they can't get it - but its a lot more fun to hang out at RoCo with the other 6 or 12 laptops. Can't get a cell phone signal to save your life..... but we probably have better free WiFi coverage than most other places in North America.

Most of these places don't turn off their signals at night, so its not unusual to see someone, middle of the night, sitting outside on a bench and surfing.

Apple content: Most (and so I mean the majority) of the laptops used in public here are Apples.

Just my gloat for the day.

 

[irun5k]

Has anyone tried User Agent -> Mobil Safari 1.1.3 -- iPhone? That should allow you to get it.

Agreed, it sounds like a simple user-agent check. I'm not sure what else they could possibly be doing to detect an iPhone that can't be spoofed, short of exchanging some kind of token that both sides know how to manufacture.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Actually, not to be difficult, but the opposite is true. Free Wi-Fi is becoming more and more scarce (at least here in the San Francisco Bay Area) because people will come into a coffee shop, plug in their laptop, and sit there for the entire day doing their work, surfing, whatever... and pay for only one cup of coffee. The power utilized by that person costs the coffee shop more than the one cup of coffee, not to mention that it detracts other customers because of the lack of seating.

Those are the breaks -- if you want to provide your customers with services, the danger always exists that someone might actually use them. I constantly see people hanging out in places like Barnes & Noble for hours on end reading books and magazines without buying them. I should think that would be an even larger problem than using some precious bandwidth, but I've never heard about anyone cracking down.

 

[Zolk]

I was at Starbucks on Saturday and saw this. Totally awesome. But I thought I would mention that the first time I got an error and it went to a T-Mobile error page. I guess AT&T is using the old T-Mobile Hotspots.

Yep, same here. Just noticed the AT&T free WiFi feature this morning, but upon entering my phone number I got an T-Mobile error page.

 

[cloudnine]

Those are the breaks -- if you want to provide your customers with services, the danger always exists that someone might actually use them. I constantly see people hanging out in places like Barnes & Noble for hours on end reading books and magazines without buying them. I should think that would be an even larger problem than using some precious bandwidth, but I've never heard about anyone cracking down.

True, and I totally agree. It's probably just much easier to charge someone for Wi-Fi so that they're not leeching than it is to confront someone to get out of their bookstore just for reading a book. :/

 

[marksskram]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)



If you hit it with your laptop it goes to the normal login page which asks for a username and password

Has anyone tried to spoof the browser UserAgent? I can't wait to test the legit free service (from iPhone).. I was going to buy the $20/account so I could get ATT WiFi from my MBP and will probably still do so.

EDIT: D'oh, someone already posted this idea

 

[NewSc2]

Why do people get so worked up over this? I actually have a life, and don't spend inordinate amounts of time at Starbucks or Barnes & Noble.

Guess what else? McDonalds has free Wi-Fi, as does Burger King. I've found it at various restaurants around town, including doctors offices, hospitals, and Best Buy, even little gift shops and grocery store.

So again - so what.....

I don't spend 3 hours in a Best Buy or Burger King, but I do spend 3 hours at Barnes and Noble (which have Starbuckses attached to them).

 

[gugy]

Nice,

It seems AT&T is really aggressive pursuing new iPhone customers.
I would not be surprise with they subsidized (like the earlier thread) some of the iPhone cost in order to bring more people in.

I just hope they improve their reception in my area.