Increased Wi-Fi Coverage on the Way for AT&T Customers

In an effort to deal with ever-increasing 3G traffic in New York City and San Francisco, AT&T has recently announced plans to both expand the range of its Wi-Fi hotzones in New York and establish a new hotzone in California.

The expansion of AT&T's existing Times Square hotzone will now allow the signal to cover the north central part of Times Square along 7th Avenue, east along 46th Street, and along Broadway, with new hotzones coming near Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

In San Francisco, the new Wi-Fi hotzone will be in the Embarcadero Center, a popular area for shopping, dining and working.

"Our initial AT&T Wi-Fi hotzones have received great customer response and supported high data traffic," said John Donovan, AT&T chief technology officer. "The pilot demonstrated the clear benefits of having fast and readily-available Wi-Fi options for our customers and our network, and so we have decided to deploy hotzones in more locations."

This isn't the first time that AT&T has attempted to ameliorate issues with poor 3G data connections in highly populated areas, as the carrier previously created a Wi-Fi hotzone in Chicago's Wrigleyville and the one in Times Square to supplement its mobile broadband service. AT&T customers with existing data or high speed internet plans can access these hotzones for free.