SBC this week said it will deploy more than 20,000 wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) hot spots in 6,000 venues over the next three years.

The carrier also said it is creating an integrated Wi-Fi and third-generation (3G) wireless service to deliver broadband wireless services to homes, businesses and remote users.

The new Wi-Fi service, to be called FreedomLink, will be available by the end of 2006 in more than 6,000 hotels, airports, convention centers and other venues throughout SBC’s 13-state region, the carrier says.

SBC plans to deploy more than 1,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in several hundred venues by year-end, more than 9,000 hot spots in 2,000 venues by the end of 2004, and more than 20,000 hot spots in 6,000 venues by the end of 2006. The company says it will continue deploying hot spots after 2006.

The integrated Wi-Fi/3G service is expected to be available in late 2004 or early 2005.

In addition to establishing hot spots at primary venues, SBC said it also plans to provide a turnkey product that enables small businesses to become hot spots and offer Wi-Fi access to their customers.

Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, refers to any wireless LAN product that's based on the IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard with theoretical data rates ranging from 11M bit/sec to 54M bit/sec.

To augment its Wi-Fi plan, SBC has reached a roaming agreement with Wayport, a leading Wi-Fi service provider. The roaming agreement will give SBC customers access to Wayport services in more than 650 locations nationwide, including 565 hotels, eight airports and 75 restaurants.

To give subscribers access to additional hot spots, SBC says it will also pursue roaming agreements with other Wi-Fi service providers.

Wayport is becoming the Wi-Fi roaming partner of choice for the RBOCs. Earlier this week, Verizon Wireless said it is teaming with Wayport to offer customers up to 650 Wi-Fi access points at hotels, convention centers and airports across the U.S.

Verizon plans to turn up 1,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in Manhattan by the end of the year. BellSouth offers a home networking service that utilizes Wi-Fi but has not announced a hot spot coverage plan yet. Qwest, which this week announced an agreement to resell Sprint's PCS wireless service, also has not divulged a Wi-Fi plan.