If you are headed to Times Square to ring in the New Year and plan on Twittering, emailing New Year greetings or mapping your way home, you don't have to worry about incurring extra data charges on your AT&T iPhone, smartphone or laptop, because you can use the Wi-Fi hotzone in Times Square. AT&T has expanded its Wi-Fi Hotzone in Times Square so that it now covers the north central part of Times
Square along 7th Avenue, east along 46th Street, and along Broadway.
AT&T also plans to launch its next Wi-Fi hotzones near Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral and in San Francisco's popular Embarcadero Center.
Earlier this year, AT&T deployed Wi-Fi hotzones in New York City's Times Square, downtown Charlotte, N.C., and Chicago's
Wrigleyville as part of its pilot project to explore using Wi-Fi to
supplement mobile broadband in urban areas with consistently high mobile
broadband use. In just a few months during the pilot, AT&T
customers made more than 350,000 connections at the three hotzones.
Hotzones
enhance the broadband experience for AT&T customers who use Wi-Fi
enabled devices. Wi-Fi hotzones provide another fast and reliable way
for customers to stay connected from their mobile devices, adding data network capacity in high-traffic areas. AT&T customers with
qualifying wireless data, LaptopConnect, and AT&T High Speed Internet
plans get unlimited access to AT&T hotzones at no additional cost.
The popularity
of Wi-Fi continues to grow as more and more consumers adopt Wi-Fi
enabled devices and experience the convenience and speed of a Wi-Fi
connection. In the third quarter of 2010, AT&T handled 106.9 million
Wi-Fi connections on its network, exceeding the total 85.5 million
connections made during the entire year in 2009.