AT&T has had a change of heart and decided to take back the free wireless Internet access offered to iPhone users. According to AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom, the offer appeared on AT&T’s website by mistake and was only kept online for a few hours; the company is not yet prepared to provide iPhone users with free Wi-Fi.

Website visitors were able to see the following message: "We are proud to offer iPhone customers free access to the nation’s largest Wi-Fi hotspot network with more than 17,000 hotspots." Hopefully, not too many users were disappointed by the misleading text. AT&T hotspots include Starbucks coffee shops, airports as well as bookstores.

A few months back, AT&T announced that free wireless would eventually be made available to iPhone users, but a date had yet to be established. July’s mistakenly made announcement was in fact AT&T’s second such event. Back in May, the company made the same free wireless access declaration, only to immediately take it back.

AT&T is the iPhone’s exclusive wireless carrier in the United States; it has signed a five-year agreement with Apple right after the smartphone was released last summer. As the device is hugely popular already, the launch of the new 3G version will only make things better. Some estimations say that more than 3 million units of the 3G iPhone have already been sold. If AT&T does decide to start offering free Internet access, a lot of users would surely appreciate it.