Alltel brings you WiFi for its one compatible device

Hey, this is the first we’ve heard from Alltel in a while that doesn’t involve them being fined. Yesterday, they announced that they’d partner with Boingo Wireless to offer WiFi access to its customers. As far as we’ve researched, Boingo Wireless has nothing to do with 80s musicians Oingo Boingo, though we could be wrong. Those Oingo Boingo guys are a wily bunch.

The problem with this move is that Alltel doesn’t offer many WiFi-capable smart phones. Actually, it’s just one: the HTC PPC6800. It’s a neat offering for sure, but it means that as far as its smart phone customers go, Alltel is only offering this service to a very select group. Clearly, they will look to add more WiFi-capable phones, but that’s going to take time to 1) acquire and configure the phones and 2) get them out to the masses. Not an easy task at all, but Alltel is seemingly committed to it.

Also being speculated is the adoption of a service like T-Mobile’s Hotspot @Home, where subscribers can make free calls from WiFi hotspots with compatible phones. However, since Alltel is a CDMA network, wouldn’t they be better off going with something like Sprint’s femtocell technology, which provides service to all phones, not just WiFi ones?

We’ll see how this plays out for Alltel. However, at this point it seems like it could flop. It just seems that there are better options, especially considering the constantly evolving technology in the wireless industry.

[Mobile Burn]

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3 Responses

1. Alltel announces new handsets | Prepaid Reviews Says
   

   [...] a new line of handsets, we simply assumed that it would have something to do with their coming WiFi service. So we were quite surprised to see that just one of the “new” devices is WiFi capable. [...]

   
   Posted on October 10th, 2007 at 11:01 am
2. Elf Says
   

   The wi-fi service is not for their phones; it is aimed at their data cards.

   
   Posted on October 13th, 2007 at 11:36 am
3. Alltel makes move with WiFi acquisition | Prepaid Reviews Says
   

   [...] site, you may want to subscribe to the the feed.Okay, so we were a bit critical of Alltel’s deal with Boingo, which provided the cell carrier with WiFi services. If they don’t have WiFi phones, we [...]

   
   Posted on October 15th, 2007 at 11:00 am

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