Wayport
announced today that it has deployed Wi-Fi wireless service at more than 6,300 locations nationwide and is adding as many as 150 new hot spots per week. By reaching this milestone, Wayport becomes the largest Wi-Fi hot spot provider in the United States.Wayport has deployed high-speed Internet access directly in more than 700 hotels, 12 major airports, thousands of McDonald’s restaurants and, soon, top Hertz airport locations. To date, more than 8 million customer connections have been made through Wayport service. More than 5 million connections occurred in 2004 alone, representing 110% year to year growth.

In October 2004, Wayport broke another company record when nearly 600,000 customers in a single month connected to the Internet through Wayport’s network. Growing numbers of mobile travelers and the subscribers of Wayport’s 10 strategic roaming partners (including wireless and wireline carriers and aggregators) are seeking out Wayport Wi-Fi hot spot locations to take advantage of the same technology, high-speeds, value and experience that they have in using Wi-Fi at home or in the office.

In addition to directly deploying and managing Wi-Fi locations, Wayport is also a managed service provider at thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots including airports,Êcoffee shops,Êand major retail locations available nationwide under Wayport’s agreement with SBC Communications Inc. Wayport’s managed services include access control, customized SBC splash pages that are “Powered by Wayport,” and support. These “Powered by Wayport” hot spot locations, combined with Wayport’s direct hot spots, total more than 6,300 locations.

“Wayport continues to lead the industry in Wi-Fi deployments at strategic locations,” said Dave Vucina, CEO of Wayport. “Our successful large scale deployments, millions of customer connections, and the expansion of our roaming agreements greatly increases the number of customers driven to the venues at which we provide service.”
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