WiFi Netnews says AT&T has sent email to customers that the Cometa relationship has ended.

“The email says that AT&T Wi-Fi Service will no longer be offered as of yesterday. It implies that it’s service is entirely driven by Cometa, but AT&T operates service through NetNearU and Concourse Communications at the Newark airport. Perhaps that’s in the past tense. AT&T’s Wi-Fi page is still showing locations, almost all McDonald’s in the New York tri-state area, and no Newark airport listing.

…The announcement says that new options for wireless Internet access will be available starting in March, including daily options, but it doesn’t define those as Wi-Fi. Will AT&T have no Wi-Fi in their future? The core AT&T doesn’t seem to have interests in data networking outside of the enterprise, that I’m aware of.

…This announcement may not signify anything of importance for Cometa, which has failed to produce an announcement of any scale since last fall. AT&T was the company that they pointed to as Cometa’s major national partner for reselling access (in New York at McDonald’s and in Seattle at 250 locations — although those Seattle locations aren’t listed at AT&T’s site), but AT&T was hardly a Wi-Fi reseller”.

It is big news (if it’s true). AT&T is a major investor in Cometa along with IBM and Intel.

I’ve always assumed that AT&T (the long distance business), needed a “last mile” line back into homes and business, especially since it lost the cable connection. WiMax (perhaps with VoIP), could have been AT&T’s vehicle.

But AT&T announced this week they will launch VoIP nationwide. Why would AT&T bail? More news could be forthcoming from CoMeta.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Friday, February 27th, 2004 at 12:43 pm.