Tue, Nov 4, 2008 16:42 EST

No Free Launch-Day Hot Spot Wi-Fi for AT&T BlackBerry Bold?

Topic: Infrastructure

Current Rating: Comments: 2

Last week, AT&T announced that its iPhone customers would get free access to all of the company's 17,000 or so Wi-Fi hot spots in establishments including Barnes & Noble, Starbucks and McDonalds. I was also told that BlackBerry Bold 9000 users with unlimited data plans would get the same treatment following the device's launch on November 4. After a few hiccups, the free iPhone Wi-Fi seems to be up and running, but I'm still unable to connect to the Wi-Fi network at my local Barnes & Noble using the Bold. And frankly, that sucks.

image of the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 with the 8820 and Pearl 8220 Flip

BlackBerry Bold 9000 with 8820 and Pearl Flip

In reality, it's not that big of a deal if Bold users can't connect immediately to AT&T's free Wi-Fi. The device just went on sale today. How many users will actually rush right to a Starbucks to see whether they can access free Wi-Fi? Probably not too many... but that's beside the point.

What is truly ridiculous is that after numerous delays and botched U.S. launch attempts—the Bold has been available in Canada since mid-August—AT&T still can't get it right. Anybody who rushes out to buy the Bold on launch day has no doubt been anxiously awaiting the device. The fact that free Wi-Fi access at AT&T hot spots isn't available to Bold owners—at least not to me— despite the company's claims to the contrary, just adds insult to injury. Especially since the free Wi-Fi appears to work for iPhone users.

Let's skip back a week or so, to the beginning of this sorry saga. Last Wednesday, I received a text message on my iPhone from AT&T letting me know that I had immediate access to all of its public U.S. Wi-Fi hot spots. At first, I was hesitant to believe the announcement, since AT&T had already posted messages on its website about free Wi-Fi for iPhone users twice in the past year, before quickly yanking the notices and chalking the mishaps up to "human error."

I contacted Seth Bloom, an AT&T spokesperson with whom I communicate somewhat regularly, for confirmation. Bloom assured me that "It's real this time." He also mentioned that BlackBerry Bold users (and eventually additional RIM smartphone users) would also get free hot spot Wi-Fi. Though he couldn't say whether the Bold Wi-Fi would be available until today, the first day AT&T is selling the Bold.

Last weekend, I took a jaunt over to my local Barnes & Noble/Starbucks to see if AT&T's claims were legit. Unfortunately--though not really surprisingly--I could not connect to the hot spot Wi-Fi with my AT&T iPhone or BlackBerry Bold 9000. This morning, I returned to the coffee shop, and though the free Wi-Fi was available for my iPhone, I still couldn't connect with the Bold.

(You may wonder why I had a Bold before AT&T began selling the device. I attended RIM's first BlackBerry Developer Conference last month, at which the company gave out BlackBerry smartphones to all attendees. Due to CIO.com policy, I won't be able to keep the device—it would be considered a "vendor gift" and that's a no-no—but I will use the Bold for a few months.)

Anyway, I contacted Bloom again after my first trip to Starbucks this morning to see if he could offer up a solution. We tried a few things (specifically, there was a provisioning setting on my account that could've been junking up the process, according to AT&T)--and I drove back and forth

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Wed, Nov 5, 2008 14:40 EST

Update...

Posted by: Al Sacco
Rating:

This is the last update I'm posting on this subject, because I'm sick of visiting Barnes & Noble--plus the staffers are all starting to look at me funny. But I thought it was only fair that I try to connect to the free AT&T Wi-Fi again today after writing my rant yesterday.

Right now, I'm still unable to access the "free" AT&T Wi-Fi, though my iPhone connected again today without any issue. And after doing a bit of searching last night I was able to locate a couple of folks who said they'd used Bolds to connect to free AT&T hot spots without issue, so apparently some of you are having better luck than I am.

It's probably worth stating that I'm not new to Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerrys--I've been using a BlackBerry 8820 and Curve 8320 on and off since they were released more than a year ago. Nor am I a stranger to using those devices to connect to various hot spots.

I've also used my Bold to connect to numerous other Wi-Fi networks without issue.

Whenever I try to connect to the AT&T hot spot with the Bold, it detects the network, but never lets me connect. I tried turning the mobile network off. I tried switching my default browser configurations from Internet Browser to Hot Spot Browser and back again. I even followed AT&T's internal instructions for connecting to its hot spots, but that didn't work either.

Whenever I was connected to the cellular network, the browser just went to the AT&T HTML business browser page upon launching it. When I turned the mobile network off and launched the Wi-Fi browser, I saw the following screen:

screen shot of BlackBerry Bold trying to connect to AT&T Wi-Fi

Then I tried turning the mobile network back on and refreshing the page. I got the same AT&T Wi-Fi login screen, though you can see from the following screen shot that the 3G mobile connection was active that time around.

screen shot of BlackBerry Bold trying to connect to AT&T Wi-Fi 2

I tried to connect to the Wi-Fi network by leaving the login credentials blank, accepting the terms of service and clicking "Log In" but that didn’t work either.

So I'm giving up...for now.

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Sat, Jul 18, 2009 14:46 EDT

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Posted by: Anonymous
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Al Sacco writes about (and drools over) anything and everything mobile or wireless as it applies to the global workforce--with a focus on BlackBerry smartphones.

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