SBC Communications announced a host of Wi-Fi partnerships and deals today to extend the reach of its network and maximize traffic passing across locations they operate: SBC will resell access to its FreedomLink network, which will include 300 Caribou Coffee stores (Midwest and South-central and Southeast coast) as well as the thousands of The UPS Store locations, to iPass, GoRemote, and Syniverse. This reselling agreement will be live by the end of 2004.
SBC FreedomLink subscribers will have access to Concourse Communications hotspots (JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Detroit, and Minneapolis/St. Paul), Telmex (400 Mexican locations), and Wise Technologies (an array of retail and airport venues). Access to those locations won't be included in a monthly fee from SBC, but will cost just $4 per day, which is often less than half the cost of the retail prices for those venues. This roaming arrangement will also be in place before year's end.
In the same press release, SBC notes that it is selling 3,000 home Wi-Fi gateways each day to SBC Yahoo! DSL customers. They reiterated that later this year, FreedomLink will be offered to its DSL subscribers at a "significant discount."
SBC is deploying several tactics at once here, increasing the size of its self-operated network to make the total number of hotspots more appealing to subscribers while also making the network more appealing to resellers. Providing discounted access to other hotspot network is useful for business travelers who may have no compunction about paying $4 a few times a month for airport access.
By emphasizing the scale of home Wi-Fi adoption and its coming discounted plan for its millions of DSL subscribers, SBC also makes the network more appealing to new venues considering which hotspot operator to work with.