AT&T to acquire Wi-Fi provider Wayport for $275 million
AT&T is paying $275 million in cash for Wayport, a privately held company that manages Wi-Fi hotspots for thousands of locations worldwide including McDonalds, the Four Seasons Hotel chain, and Marriott Vacation Club. AT&T plans to offer its customers free Wi-Fi access at Wayport hotspots. Recently, AT&T decided to offer free Wi-Fi at Starbucks, a US coffee chain that used to be with T-Mobile.
AT&T’s decision to give away Wi-Fi access is very smart: heavy data users such as people who own the iPhone in the US will use Wi-Fi more than 3G, easing the congestion on AT&T’s 3G networks.
What does this mean for Boingo and iPass, companies that do not own or manage Wi-Fi networks but only act as aggregators? An AT&T customer will be less likely to sign up for their service if she uses mostly AT&T hotspots. However, if she wants to use non-AT&T hotspots (especially outside the US) or if her company already has a deal with iPass, AT&T’s move does not affect her. Note also that Boingo does have a roaming agreement with Wayport.
Boingo CEO Dave Hagan says:
“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. At Boingo, we have seen carriers and cable companies moving quickly to assure they have a Wi-Fi service offering; naturally, that leads to the kind of industry consolidation exemplified by AT&T buying Wayport, our own acquisition of both Concourse Communications and Sprint’s Wi-Fi network.”
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