• Free Wi-Fi at Starbucks for iPhone users

    John Biggs

    Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

    Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

    Once again AT&T is offering free Wi-Fi access at Starbucks and McDonald’s hotspots in the US. The system is fairly simple: just type in your AT&T phone number when you fire up your mobile browser get 24 hours of connectivity automatically.

    iPhone users, get started with Wi-Fi

    *
    Activate Wi-Fi from the settings icon on your iPhone
    *
    Select “attwifi” from the list of available networks
    *
    Enter your 10-digit mobile number and check the box to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy. Tap ‘continue’
    *
    You will receive a text message from AT&T with a secure link to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. You will not be charged for the text message.
    *
    The SMS link will only be valid for 24 hours at the location it was requested. Another request must be submitted when using another hotspot location.
    *
    Open the text message and tap on the link for 24-hour access to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot

    They’ve turned this on and off over the past few months and this time it looks like it’s actually going to stick. According to an AT&T source, the service should be officially announced today but it seems everything is in place for a full roll-out. This should work in any of AT&T 17,000 nationwide hotspots.

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