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In recognition of National Internet Safety Month, AT&T Inc. is collaborating with nonprofit advocacy organizations to promote a safe online experience for consumers. AT&T also encouraged parents to be involved in their children’s online activity, including wireless devices and computers.

Along with the tools and services that AT&T provides to customers to help keep their families safe, the company is also supporting a number of critical outreach efforts that will help educate parents, children and communities about online safety. AT&T is working with the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (IKeepSafe), Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) officers and Enough Is Enough to provide the resources and educational opportunities necessary to inform consumers of all ages about the benefits and challenges faced online.

AT&T Inc. and Starbucks announced the beginning of the rollout of its Wi-Fi service at company-operated Starbucks stores, kicking off a nationwide effort that will continue through 2008.

As of May 1, qualifying AT&T customers can connect to the Internet from Wi-Fi enabled company-operated Starbucks locations nationwide by simply selecting “ATTWiFi” after powering up their computers. Free AT&T Wi-Fi service is currently offered with AT&T’s three higher-speed residential broadband packages, all small business broadband packages and with all AT&T U-verseSM offerings with high speed Internet service.

For other customers, AT&T Wi-Fi service will reach company-operated Starbucks locations on a market-by-market basis throughout the year. The experience will include a mix of free and paid connection options for both frequent and occasional Wi-Fi users and qualifying Starbucks customers. Once AT&T Wi-Fi service is available, customers will be able to shop and surf both Starbucks’ and AT&T’s respective home pages for products and services.

Starbucks has ended its six-year partnership with T-Mobile HotSpot and entered into a 10-year relationship with AT&T to provide free Wi-Fi access to anyone. As expected, the financial terms were not disclosed to the public.

Though free Wi-Fi is already available in smaller coffee shops, this major change could affect the Wi-Fi hotspot industry due to Starbucks’ magnitude. In the U.S. alone, this coffee shop has more than 17 million customers and 7,000 stores nationwide. Initial launch is expected this coming spring while nationwide implementation will be completed within the year.

What prompted Starbucks to adopt a free system is the growing number of customers with handheld devices like iPhone, Wi-Fi radios and laptops. Hopefully this idea will help improve its in-store business in the form of music and video downloads through its partnership with iTunes. More importantly, it hopes to enhance overall customer experience.

Via The Seattle Times

TurnHere has forged an agreement with Yellowpages.com, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc., to produce online videos for Yellowpages.com’s broad base of local business customers.

Under the agreement, TurnHere will provide a custom-produced video approach to Yellowpages.com for its Video Profile product, which the company recently started offering. During the development of the Video Profiles, advertisers will work directly with TurnHere’s network of local videographers to produce creative videos that capture the personality and services of each small business owner.

AT&T Inc. announced that Pandora is now available on select wireless phones from AT&T. With Pandora, AT&T’s wireless customers can discover new music, listen to their favorite artists and create their own personalized radio stations on their handsets.

Pandora makes listening to favorite music and discovering new music simple and fun. Users just type in a song or artist that they like, and, within seconds, Pandora delivers a personalized radio station over the air to wireless customers’ handsets with songs that fit the same sound and style. The songs are selected based on the Music Genome Project, Pandora’s innovative system that uses highly trained musicians to analyze music one song at a time. These musicians identify hundreds of different musical qualities of each recording, including melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, arrangement, lyrics and vocals. Using this analysis, the listener’s personalized radio stations are created. Listeners can then rate the songs that they hear with a simple “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to further refine the stations’ playlist to their tastes.

Pandora on AT&T phones is integrated seamlessly with the online version of Pandora. Subscribers will receive customized streaming radio stations delivered to them on both their mobile handsets and on the Pandora Web site via a universal account. With the ability to customize radio stations on their phone as well as on their PC, users will receive a very personalized radio experience that fits their individual needs. Up to 100 stations can be saved in a user’s account, and those stations can be enjoyed anywhere within AT&T’s extensive 3G network.

AT&T Inc. announced a new international plan that gives iPhone users 50mb of data per month to browse the web, check e-mail and access other information in more than 29 countries, including Canada, China, Mexico and in areas throughout Europe and Asia.

The new Data Global Plan is available to iPhone customers for $59.99 a month, which is in addition to the domestic voice and data iPhone plan they purchase during iPhone activation. The Data Global Plan enables international voice and data roaming, as well as international long distance dialing from the United States at standard rates.

The plan requires customers to first purchase a domestic voice and data plan for the iPhone and is not available as a stand-alone offer. Normal eligibility requirements for international plans apply. Should customers exceed the 50MB bucket in the 29 countries where the plan applies, they will pay $.005/KB. Outside those countries, consumers will simply pay for their data usage by the kilobyte, at rates starting as low as $.010/KB.

AT&T also offers a 20mb Data Global Plan for iPhone customers for $24.99 a month. The 20mb bucket applies to usage within the same 29 countries, with overage rated at $.005/KB. Outside the 29 designated countries, the data usage rate is $.0195/KB.

Travelers can visit www.att.com/wirelessinternational to see whether service is available in the countries to which they are going.

AT&T Inc. announced that wireless customers will soon be able to download more than 5 million full-track songs over the air from Napster.

Beginning mid-November, the Napster Mobile service will enable AT&T wireless customers to easily search a music catalog with more than 5 million songs, preview samples of each song and conveniently purchase and download their favorite music from their wireless handsets in less than a minute. Customers will have the ability to download five tracks a month with the Napster Mobile Five-Track Pack option for a discounted price of $7.49 or purchase songs a la carte for just $1.99. As a special offer, customers who select the Napster Mobile Five-Track Pack from their phone will receive the first five songs free.

Napster Mobile will also feature joint delivery, sending a track to the user’s wireless handset while making a duplicate copy available for download to the user’s PC at no additional charge. An e-mail notice will be sent to the user’s PC and will provide a link to download the new song.

AT&T Inc. agreed to acquire Interwise, a provider of voice, web and video conferencing services to businesses. AT&T will pay approximately $121 million in cash for the company.

The transaction is expected to align Interwise’s innovative IP-based conferencing and collaboration solution with AT&T’s enterprise networking, communications and collaboration services, global MPLS-based IP network and its industry-leading conferencing portfolio of services.