Thursday, November 06, 2008

Wayport Bought by Ma Bell

Ma Bell wants to be the wireless company that everyone turns to. Or more likely the wireless company every HAS to use no matter how spotty the coverage or expensive the package.

Ma and Ivan Bell are in a fight with Sprint-Clearwire-Xohm and the Pivot cable cadre for the consumers' mobility dollars. By buying Wayport, Ma Bell adds 12,000 more managed hotspots to its network. It now has McDonalds on top of Starbucks.

Wayport last year was looking to work with ISP's to offer them a mobility option for their clients. None that I know of thought it was a good idea. Apparently when you have millions of customers, some want mobility though. Hence, the $275M cash purchase. I wonder if that SP program will be shut down.

In related news, AT&T has launched a new U-verse offer, boosting downstream speeds up to 18 Mbps.

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