Cometa invades coffee capital

Cometa Networks has announced plans for 250 Wi-Fi hot spots to begin launching service this month in Seattle, which it claims will become the American city with the highest density of public hot spots upon the addition of it service locations.

Redmond, Wash.-based AT&T Wireless is the premier service provider involved in the Seattle rollout for Cometa, which is backed financially by AT&T Business, Intel and IBM.

All of the hot spots mentioned in Cometa’s Seattle launch plans will go live by the end of this year, but more than 100 of them will launch on Sept. 25 as part Intel’s nationwide “One Unwired Day” free access promotion.

These hot spots will be in locations such as McDonald's restaurants, Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Tully's Coffee shops, among other venues. The 40 Tully’s Coffee sites are notable in that Cometa/AT&T Wireless’ most significant Wi-Fi competitor in Seattle will be tag team of Seattle-based Starbucks and Bellevue, Wash.-based T-MobileUSA.

In addition to AT&T Wireless, Sprint, AT&T (wireline) and iPass will also provide Wi-Fi service to Seattle area customers, offering a selection of Wi-Fi broadband service and pricing plans to be announced in the coming weeks.