Sprint is the third US cellular carrier to announce plans for a public Wi-Fi network, and plans to launch by summer's end — with over 2,000 hotspots planned by the end of 2003. Question: Why don't the carriers all get together and make one big happy unwired network instead of proprietary patchwork?
The new service, announced Monday, will let customers connect with the Web whenever they're near one of about 800 "hot spots" around the nation, mostly through roaming agreements with WiFi carriers including Airpath Wireless and Wayport…. A similar service was recently launched by Verizon, which is providing WiFi access through transmitters on its public pay phones. AT&T Wireless plans to launch a WiFi service as well. Prices will be announced when Sprint launches the service, which will be accessible to customers who already have a WiFi-enabled computer or those who buy a special laptop card. A WiFi enabled version of the software used to connect a laptop to Sprint PCS's cellular network will be introduced at that time.
Glenn Fleishman says:
No offense if anyone's associated with the writing of this story, but this is a terrible account. It leaves out most of the salient issues to this announcement: Sprint PCS is pushing roaming like crazy, is building 1,300 hot spots of its own. Verizon didn't launch service of its own; the payphone-based Wi-Fi is not Verizon Wireless, but Verizon Communications, and makes it available just to its DSL customers. Wi-Fi is not spelled WiFi. Full disclosure: I filed a brief on this for the NY Times that appears in today's paper and provided the rest of the reporting here on my Web log.
