AT&T Wireless Home Phone & Internet Service Launches Nationwide

People in any part of the country covered by AT&T’s wireless network can now get a wireless-based home phone and Internet offering from the company, said an AT&T executive.

As the executive explained, customers signing on for the service, dubbed AT&T Wireless Home Phone & Internet, get a device that acts as a Wi-Fi hotspot using AT&T’s cellular network for connectivity to the Internet -- and customers also can plug a traditional landline phone into the same device, enabling the phone to also work over the cellular network.

The nationwide launch of AT&T Wireless Home Phone & Internet comes at a time when the company is gearing up for trials in which all landline voice customers in an area will have their service replaced with a cellular alternative or, where available, with a voice offering running over the company’s fiber-fed U-verse infrastructure.

The company’s ultimate goal is to phase out traditional landline voice service – and when it does that, it may want to also phase-out lower-speed DSL service, which runs over the same copper connection as the voice service. Eliminating DSL as well as landline voice in areas not targeted for U-verse upgrades would let AT&T abandon the copper connection between the customer and the central office, thereby eliminating the cost of maintaining that infrastructure.