AT&T has bought up Wi-Fi hotspot provider Wayport for $275m, hugely increasing the number of places that subscribers with an iPhone or Blackberry Bold can get free access.

The companies have worked together before; Wayport provided backhaul and management to AT&T hotspots. But Wayport always focused on providing hotspots in hotels, hospitals and chain-stores, notably McDonalds, carving a niche out for itself - one that AT&T now owns.

But if someone else succeeds where you've failed the answer is to buy them out - ideally when the economy makes acquisitions cheap. That way you can wait a decade, then paint the whole thing as a coherent plan by merging the projects together in history.

ABI Research, commenting on the deal, points out that while AT&T customers with their Blackberry Bold handsets will get free Wi-Fi, those who switch to Verizon for a Blackberry Storm won't even have Wi-Fi connectivity.

Including roaming locations this gives AT&T 80,000 hotspots around the world, assuming those roaming deals make the transition from Wayport. However, it's still debatable how useful Wi-Fi is on a phone. In areas with decent 3G coverage the hotspot model is largely redundant. The greater speed is hard to exploit on a mobile phone screen, but where coverage is less ubiquitous there is still room for Wi-Fi. ®

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