Alltel announced a partnership with Boingo to dramatically expand their Wi-Fi footprint. The expansion adds 25,000 hotspots to Alltel’s network. The expanded service will be offered to anyone across the U.S. at $19.99/month for unlimited use or $3.99/day. Alltel also recently began bundling Wi-Fi with it’s EVDO broadband wireless service as the Internet Anywhere bundle for $69.98/month.

T-Mobile will introduce two new handsets to their Hotspot@Home service. Hotspot@Home allows voice over Wi-Fi capability, allowing T-Mobile customers to utilize Wi-Fi coverage at home or abroad to make voice phone calls. The Hotspot@Home plan provides unlimited calling over Wi-Fi networks for $10/month. The new handsets include the Nokia 6301 and Samsung SGH-t339. T-Mobile now has eight Hotspot@Home compatible handsets, including three smartphones.

AT&T is leveraging their broadband wireless capability with DSL service to provide a converged broadband to go service. Branded as AT&T Net Reach, the new $79.95/month service targets laptop carrying customers with seamless access to Wi-Fi, 3G wireless, and home DSL/Wi-Fi service. Net Reach provides a laptop broadband connection manager that automatically connects with the strongest available broadband service among AT&T's 17,0000 Wi-Fi hotspots, 3G GSM wireless network, or the customer's home broadband service (via a home wireless network). Conceivably, customers won't know (or care) which network they're connected to - they'll just be connected to broadband. Customers must opt-in to unified billing of wireline and wireless services.

The strategy makes great competitive sense. It creates competitive differentiation between AT&T and their cable competitors. It's a great example of how telecom carriers can leverage their wireless advantage. But for how long? Cable will soon catch up. Between Cablevision's (granted they don't compete directly with AT&T) pending launch of a mesh Wi-Fi network and cable's involvement in the Clearwire WiMAX joint venture, the cable industry will soon try to flex some broadband wireless muscle of their own.

Cablevision, a cable triple play pioneer, announced plans to launch a broadband wireless network covering their New York metro footprint within two years. The new network will be based on Wi-Fi mesh technology and will be offered at no charge to existing Cablevision customers and for a fee for non-Cablevision customers. Cablevision has about 3.3 million customers and an industry leading broadband penetration rate of 50%. This launch follows a trend by other smaller cable MSOs and broadband service providers, who see broadband wireless networks as a value add opportunity for existing customers.

This is not just about broadband Internet access though. For example, Multichannel News describes a possible scenario offered by Cisco, where “… a Wi-Fi mesh network could allow a cable operator to offer subscribers ubiquitous connectivity in a metro area for any service. For example, someone watching TV could choose to transfer the video signal to a cellular phone and walk outside if Cisco’s Cable Service Mesh is deployed in the subscriber’s neighborhood.” Applications like that could provide tangible competitive advantage. At least until Verizon integrates a similar service utilizing FiOS and LTE. With announcements like this and the recent WiMAX joint venture featuring prominent cable companies, it appears as if cable is getting their wireless mojo going.

Starbucks has inked a deal that replaces T-Mobile with AT&T for their company store Wi-Fi hotspot service. T-mobile customers will still be able to access the network through a roaming agreement with AT&T. AT&T’s broadband and U-verse customers will have access to the Starbuck’s Wi-Fi networks free of charge. This latest move expands upon AT&T’s growing use of Wi-Fi as a competitive tool. They recently opened up their nationwide Wi-Fi network free of charge to existing broadband customers.

AT&T is leveraging Wi-Fi for several reasons. Giving it away to broadband customers creates additional value for an AT&T subscription. AT&T also has millions of newly minted iPhone subscribers, who are hungry for broadband access to utilize their smart phone’s full potential. Additionally, AT&T may be making some pre-emptive moves against Sprint. It’s widely known that Sprint is attempting to launch a nationwide WiMAX network. Assuming that get’s done (which might be a big assumption), Sprint conceivably will be in a position to provide a better broadband wireless experience than their competitors. With widescale access to Wi-Fi, AT&T customers may feel like they have enough and not be tempted to try Sprint’s new Xohm network.

AT&T announced that subscribers to their DSL service will receive access to their 10,000 POP Wi-Fi hotspot network at no additional charge. This feature was previously available to “premium” DSL subscribers, but is now available to any customer who subscribes to a 1.5Mbps or higher downstream speed package. AT&T claims the new service will save existing broadband customers a potential $60/year and new customers a potential $240/year.

Alltel is partnering with Boingo to allow Wi-Fi access to Alltel customers. Wi-Fi service will be bundled with Alltel’s EV-DO wireless broadband service for an additional $9.99/month, providing unlimited Wi-Fi access at Boingo hotspots. Alltel will also sell prepaid Wi-Fi access for $9.99/day or $19.99/month.

The news on municipal Wi-Fi is not encouraging. Several communities have recently pulled the plug on launching Wi-Fi, with Chicago being the most prominent. Word is that the citwide Wi-Fi efforts in San Francisco and Houston are in trouble as well. There are a few success stories. Corpus Christi, TX apparently has a successful model, and there are certainly others. Nevertheless, big challenges remain for large scale muni Wi-Fi projects. These challenges are hitting Earthlink hard. They’ve recently announced a restructuring, resulting in the loss of 900 jobs. Earthlink viewed municipal Wi-Fi as a growth engine for them – one they hoped would help replace their rapidly declining dial-up business. Unfortunately for Earthlink and other muni Wi-Fi proponents, the news doesn’t appear to be getting any better. The rise of WiMAX may prove to put muni Wi-Fi to bed for good.

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Horizon Chillicothe Telephone, based in Chillicothe, OH, announced the launch of a series of wireless Wi-Fi hotspots throughout their southern Ohio community. The new service, branded as Horizon View, will add wireless broadband service to Chillicothe’s bundling strategy, and will be available as a free value add feature for Chillicothe Internet subscribers. “We want our Horizon customers to be able to take their Internet service with them around town,” said Bill McKell, Horizon CEO. “As portable computers get smaller and more handheld devices, like the iPhone, prefer the fast speeds of WiFi access points, Horizon is committed to providing high-speed wireless Internet service in the places our customers visit the most." Chillicothe hopes to have 100 wireless hotspots operating throughout their service territory by then end of the year.

This Chillicothe example illustrates the growing trend of smaller service providers, both telecom and cable, leveraging broadband wireless services to extend their value and brand. As WiMAX and other wireless broadband technologies come to market, service providers of all sizes will be pressured to include a broadband wireless option for their subscribers. The future will see further convergence of wireless and broadband, with most devices including laptops, portable media players, and cell phones (not just smartphones) having wireless broadband connectivity built directly into them. As consumers begin to become familiar with these features, demand for wireless broadband connectivity will increase dramatically.

RIM announced the launch of a dual mode Blackberry, which will operate on both GSM and Wi-Fi networks. The new Blackberry 8820 will launch on the AT&T network. It didn’t take long for RIM to get this new device to market. We reported about the FCC approval of the Blackberry WI-Fi device on July 9th. The new 8820 Blackberry also supports unlicensed mobile access (UMA) technology, which allows for seamless roaming between GSM and Wi-Fi. Although AT&T’s plan for UMA are somewhat unclear at this point. AT&T is expected to bring the 8820 to market later this summer.