Friday, May 6, 2011

AT&T Launches Wi-Fi Hotzone on Austin's Sixth Street

Dallas-based carrier AT&T said Friday that it is launching its fifth, major Wi-Fi "hotzone" effort, with a new zone in Austin along the Sixth Street Entertainment District. The firm said it will provide Wi-Fi from the 100 block to 600 block on Sixth Street, between Congress and I35. The zone is the fifth major hotzone created by AT&T, which has similar zones at Times Square in New York City, San Francisco's Embarcadero CEnter, downtown Charlotte, N.C., and Wrigleyville in Chicago. AT&T's hotzone provides much better Wi-Fi coverage than a typical Wi-Fi access point, and allows AT&T customers to get faster wireless connection and data speeds. The new zone will help AT&T offload wireless congestion in the area, by moving data traffic off its cell phone network and onto its Wi-Fi connections. Part of the new AT&T zone were actually set up this year temporarily for SXSW; AT&T said it saw over 120,000 connections to the temporary Wi-Fi zone since March, which convinced the firm that they needed a permanent hotzone in the area.