AT&T Wireless Expands Hotspot Presence

AT&T Wireless announced plans Thursday to expand its wireless hotspot presence in airports and train stations.

The wireless carrier announced a roaming agreement with competitor T-Mobile that covers hotspot access in the Denver, San Francisco and Philadelphia airports. In a separate announcement, AT&T Wireless said it was working with Amtrak to install hotspots in train stations in New York, Boston and four other populace Eastern cities. The service will be available this summer, the company said.

Under the agreement with T-Mobile, that vendor's customers could use AT&T Wireless' hotspots in the Denver International and Philadelphia International airports. AT&T customers could use T-Mobile hotspots in the San Francisco airport. Each company's customers will be able to log on using their regular user ID and password, the companies said in a statement.

In a statement, AT&T Wireless said that the San Francisco airport would represent the seventh airport at which its customers can access hotspots. T-Mobile has more than 4,000 hotspot locations in airports and other public places such as Starbucks coffee shops.

The companies said they would complete the integration efforts needed to implement the roaming agreement by the middle of the year.Besides New York and Boston, the other Amtrak stations in which AT&T wireless said it will install hotspots are Providence, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware and Baltimore, the company said in a statement.

When available, the company will charge $9.99 for one-day of access, it said in its statement. The service will be available this summer, the company said. AT&T Wireless also has next-generation EDGE cellular data service available and said that the two technologies will complement each other.

AT&T Wireless, which spun off from AT&T, has said it will entertain acquisition offers from other wireless operators. Among the reported suitors are Cingular Wireless, the U.K.'s Vodafone and Japan's NTT DoCoMo.