AT&T has announced a free AT&T Wi-Fi service to current and new customers of select smartphones, including the new BlackBerry (News - Alert) Bold, available Nov. 4.

 

AT&T officials claim “the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network,” with more than 17,000 hot spots including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, and thousands of other locations.

 

The free Wi-Fi service is for customers with unlimited data plans. In addition to the BlackBerry Bold, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 and the BlackBerry 8820 will follow later this year. AT&T (News - Alert) officials also say the company “plans to make the offer available to more mobile devices in the future.”

 

David Christopher, chief marketing officer of AT&T’s mobility business unit, said having handsets plus “the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network, it only makes sense for us to bring these together for our customers.”

 

Free Wi-Fi access is also available with all AT&T small business broadband plans, AT&T High Speed Internet plans and with qualified AT&T LaptopConnect plans. For customers without an AT&T broadband or smart phone plan, Wi-Fi subscriptions are available for $19.99 a month.

 

A couple months ago, TMC's (News - Alert)  Tom Keating blogged about AT&T’s announcement that they “would soon be dropping its CallVantage broadband VoIP service since they dropped their affiliate marketing channel.”

Reporting that AT&T is no longer accepting ANY new orders from ANY source - “affiliate or otherwise,” Keating found the “slow death of CallVantage a bit sad,” but not “particularly surprising, not only because they dropped the affiliate channel last month but as I have previously indicated, AT&T is heavily promoting their U-Verse fiber-to-copper hybrid service that combines IPTV (News - Alert), data, and U-Verse Voice (in select areas).”

Keating opined that it seemed “a little early to cut the cord on acquiring new Callvantage customers since neither U-Verse nor U-Verse Voice are available in most of the country -- including my neighborhood where it was promised for this summer.”