It would seem everyone in the US with a legit iPhone and contract received a message from AT&T this week telling us we’ve got free WiFi at of if their hotspots around the country.
Friday I decided to try it. At lunch we went to Borders Book (Barnes & Noble in disguise) with has an AT&T hotspot.
I immediately tried to connect. It detected my phone as an iPhone and asked for my number. After which I repeatedly got a failure notice. After several tries, I gave up.
10 minutes later, I tried again. This time it worked and I was told I’d receive an SMS message with a link to activate.
After several minutes the message arrived. Too late, of course, as we’d already left the book store.
I tried again today at a Barnes & Noble on the other side of town. Again, I got the repeated failure. Later, as I was leaving, it worked. This time I stuck around long enough to test it.
It does, indeed, work but the initial failure is very problematic and inconvenient.
I wonder if they knew I was planning to use the wifi to look up books on amazon.com to see if I could get a better price?
