T-Mobile Posts Data on Wi-Fi Use

T-Mobile USA disclosed user statistics from its Wi-Fi business for the first time, reporting that 450,000 customers had paid to access the wireless Internet service in the last three months.

The cellphone company declined to provide a year-ago customer tally for comparison but did release figures showing a sharp increase in usage for the service, which provides high-speed Internet access for laptops at locations such as Starbucks coffee shops, airports and hotels.

For example, T-Mobile Hotspot users were staying online an average of 64 minutes per log-on this year, up from 45 minutes last year and 23 minutes in 2003. The total number of log-ons totaled 3 million in the last three months, compared with about 8 million in all of 2004.

The Wi-Fi service is a key business for T-Mobile, which unlike many of its rivals is not upgrading its cellular network to deliver high-speed Internet access in addition to phone service.

The company, a unit of Deutsche Telekom of Germany, does not own the rights to use as large a swath of the airwaves as the competition.