Why in the hell would anyone with an iphone, myself included, go through all that sign-up, sign-in crap when they are ALWAYS connected to a 3-G network???????? Is this another marketing ploy?

It's AT&T attempting to limit us to just the iPhone and not allowing laptops and such use the access.  During its brief roll-out of this support three months ago, there was mass "abuse" and AT&T went back to the drawing board.  This was the solution. Clumsy and stupid.  The joke about this is that you can still get around this and use the free time on your laptop if you want.

Truth is, AT&T (as was T-Mobile) are dumping a lot of money into each hotspot.  With a T1 (which can cost up to $800 a month), a Cisco 1841 router, Cisco AP, wall-mount rack, APC power strip, and labor associated to all of this, it's not cheap to put these in.  Most mom-and-pop shops are doing DSL through a Linksys router.  With a few people on the mom-and-pop network, speeds suffer.  AT&T's set up won't.  You get what you "pay" for.

That said,  I still agree, AT&T needs to work with Apple to better stream line this process.  The iPhone should just pass its credentials to the AT&T router and you're on.  Done!

Quote: "With a T1 (which can cost up to $800 a month), a Cisco 1841 router, Cisco AP, wall-mount rack, APC power strip, and labor associated to all of this, it's not cheap to put these in."

Why not just stick a Meraki on it? skip all the hardware, ignore the wireless companies and provide a low cost solution with all the control necessary.

hey, it's great!!!!

This is awesome, totally appreciate the free access, but it's a little clunky to get online. It'd be great if AT&T WiFi Hotspots could pick up that it's an iPhone, connect and grant access automatically. It'd save AT&T money on bandwidth use, frankly, and take strain off the 3G network by pushing data through a much lower cost method.

(And, if it's a terms of service issue, work with AT&T and make it a part of your mobile phone contract.)

But this is still awesome, and I'll use it a lot! Thank you!

Gimmicks, Gimmicks.  Just make it free to everyone instead of trying to make a few Starbux cronies feel important because they get free refills and internet.  Maybe you'll get some of Paneras overflowing business.  

anyway to make this work for Ipod touch folks as well?

You left out a step describing how you have to open Safari to access the page where you enter your phone number....