AT&T to Acquire Wi-Fi Hotspot Provider Wayport

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

AT&T said on Thursday that it was buying wi-fi provider Wayport for for approximately $275 million in cash. This acquisition will increase AT&T’s wi-fi hotpot footprint from some 17,000 to about 20,000 nationwide. It will also up AT&T hotspot total to 80,000 (up from 70,000) globally.

Wayport had been serving up wi-fi at McDonald’s, so this means in addition to having the wi-fi monopoly at the world’s biggest coffee chain (Starbucks) AT&T will now add its wi-fi to as a side order to McDonald’s burgers.

This follows closely AT&T finally opening up its hotspots to iPhone owners; now if we could just get tethering on the device.

Besides McDonald’s, Wayport has hotspots at several hotel chains including select Wyndham, Marriott Vacation Club and Four Seasons hotels and at healthcare provider HealthSouth and Sun Healthcare facilities.

In their press release, John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations said:

“We’re seeing exponential growth of Wi-Fi-enabled devices — such as smartphones — combined with a continued dependency on 24/7, anytime, anywhere Internet access across business and consumer market segments. Now is the right time for AT&T to affirm our commitment to Wi-Fi leadership. By acquiring Wayport, we’re giving consumers more ways to stay in touch and building a more robust network management solution for businesses. We’re bringing ready access to the nation’s leading Wi-Fi, wireless and IP networks — on a global scale.”

It’s true that more and more cellular phones and other devices are adding wi-fi as an option, so this makes (dollars and) sense. In fact, market research firm In-Stat has predicted that nearly 1 billion wi-fi enabled phones will be shipped in 2012, while nearly 300 million shipped in 2007.

Here’s another key to the deal: Wayport currently provides back-office management for AT&T’s wi-fi hotspots. So this deal brings management of AT&T’s wi-fi infrastructure completely under its own management.

AT&T hopes the Wayport deal will be completed as early as before the end of 2008.