Melville House Books

Although all the reports, such as this wire story from The Dallas Business Journal, follow corporate press releases so closely that they are riddled with too much jargon to be comprehensible, it seems Barnes & Nobel will be partnering with the SBC Communications company and with Avis Rent A Car to expand SBC’s “FreedomLink WiFi service more widely available.” According to the report, WiFi “enables mobile professionals and consumers to use laptop computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to wirelessly connect to the Internet at speeds 50 to 100 times as fast as a dial-up connection. Customers can sign up for a single two-hour session for $3.95 or they can buy an annual membership which provides unlimited access to all of SBC’s WiFi hotspots for $19.95 per month.” The service is now available at over 600 B&Ns. The report fails to say how the new deal will expand from that already significant coverage.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.