AT&T Inc., through one of its subsidiaries, is
buying privately-held Wayport Inc. for about $275 million in cash, adding nearly 20,000 domestic hotspots to its global Wi-Fi presence of more than 60,000 locations. Irving, Texas-based Wayport enables wireless connections to the Internet via smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices at McDonald's restaurants, Hertz offices, hotels, airports and other locations. The firm, founded in 1996, counts Sevin Rosen Funds, Invesco Private Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Scale Venture Partners and Trellis Partners as its major investors.
Research provider In-Stat reported that nearly 300 million Wi-Fi-enabled devices were shipped in 2007 and nearly 1 billion are predicted by 2012. AT&T is the nation's largest Wi-Fi network and is pushing its 3G service at a time when Sprint Nextel Corp., which
decided not to spin off its iDEN network, has banded together with Clearwire Corp. and big media firms to roll out a nationwide 3G network. That
$14.5 billion WiMax deal got
approval from the FCC on Monday.
Wi-Fi access provider Boingo Wireless Inc.'s CEO Dave Hagan had this to
say about the Wayport deal, "From an industry perspective, it's great that AT&T sees Wi-Fi as a great complement to 3G networks. Carriers should bundle Wi-Fi with 3G to provide a better user experience and offload expensive data usage to cheaper, faster Wi-Fi networks."
In other AT&T news, the Dallas-based company just rolled out its BlackBerry Bold
smartphone and is testing
bandwidth caps for its Internet customers. -
Baz HiralalSee the AT&T press release
Join Corporate Dealmaker's LinkedIn forum
Cuong Viet Do
And the winners are...
