AT&T becomes largest WiFi hotspot provider with Wayport acquisition

Ever wonder who the largest WiFi hotspot provider is? Look no further than your favorite iPhone coverage provider, AT&T. That’s right, AT&T is dropping a whopping $275 million to buy out Wayport, an 11 year old wireless network provider that started out in hotel rooms and managed to branch its way into 10,000 McDonald’s worldwide. What does this mean for you? An AT&T spokesperson says they plan to increase their Basic plan wireless network locations to 20,000 with this acquisition. This Basic plan is free to all of the millions of AT&T subscribers. That’s you, iPhone users.

As mentioned earlier, this acquisition moves AT&T to the largest WiFi hotspot provider in the world, even beating out T-Mobile. However, ArsTechnica points out that AT&T likes to give away all this WiFi. Why? With so many hotspots around the world, AT&T can use them to take the load off of their 3G network.Not only does this WiFi provide faster speeds, it is usually more reliable than a cell signal, which is a win-win situation for us, the customers.

Via ArsTechnica