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Free Wi-Fi will be offered at more than 10,000 locations, such as airports, McDonald’s restaurants, Barnes & Noble bookstores, coffee shops, and sporting venues.

AT&T on Wednesday said it will start offering its broadband subscribers free unlimited access to the company’s Wi-Fi network.

With the growing popularity of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices, AT&T wanted to give its subscribers more options to access the Internet on the go, the carrier said. Free Wi-Fi will be offered at over 10,000 locations in the U.S., which include airports, McDonald’s restaurants, Barnes & Noble bookstores, coffee shops, and sporting venues.

But it will only apply to new and existing customers that sign up for AT&T’s broadband services, including AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet or FastAccess DSL, with downstream speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps, 3.0 Mbps, or 6.0 Mbps.

AT&T customers that have mobile phones with Wi-Fi technology also will have to subscribe to one of those services with downstream speeds of 1.5 Mbps or above to receive free Wi-Fi, an AT&T spokeswoman said. Simply having an iPhone with a standard AT&T data plan won’t qualify, for example.

For new customers, AT&T will activate Wi-Fi connectivity when they sign up for a new broadband service and complete the setup and the registration process.

AT&T initially began offering free Wi-Fi access to its higher-speed broadband customers last year. Those customers had to have AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet Pro, AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet Elite, FastAccess Xtreme, or FastAccess Xtreme 6.0, to be eligible for the offer.

Full Story Via InformationWeek

Filed under: Business and Finance, Smartphones, Wireless