T - Mobile: 450, 000 People Paid to Use Wi - Fi - New York Times

T - Mobile: 450, 000 People Paid to Use Wi - Fi - New York TimesT-Mobile USA disclosed user statistics from its Wi-Fi business for the first time Monday, reporting that 450,000 customers have paid to access the wireless Internet service in the past three months.

The cell phone 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 are staying online an average of 64 minutes per login in 2005, up from 45 minutes last year and 23 minutes in 2003. The total number of log-ins has totaled 3 million in the past three months, vs. about 8 million in all of 2004.