Confusing coverage of AT&T (not AT&T Wireless) announcement about Wi-Fi, business networking: AT&T said at Supercomm 2003 that they would spend $500 million on business networking. The story from atnewyork.com said AT&T said it would deploy hot spots, but most of the $500M was about simplifying contracts, slashing provisioning time, improving billing accuracy, rolling out powerful electronic servicing capabilities, and linking customers' computers directly into AT&T's network-support systems. Later in the story, it quotes AT&T's head Dorman as improving hot spot-based access to business resources, like VPNs and applications.
The press release itself from AT&T says: In 2003, AT&T will extend its business customers? secure corporate intranets to Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and hotels nationwide....WiFi access to AT&T?s secure network services will be expanded to global airports and hotels throughout 2004. This sounds like they're not building out, but rather using infrastructure, because it's "access."
Making it even more confusing is News.com's filing, which says, Dorman expects AT&T will have about 500 locations by 2005, mainly airport executive lounges and hotels, where AT&T customers can use Wi-Fi networks to surf the Web or link to a computer network. (AT&T has one airport hot zone at Denver, which Nokia actually did all the install work for back in 2001 and then couldn't find an operator for quite a while.)
Obviously, AT&T's PR department could use some on-message help.