WOW! Edge quicker with WiFi off! Just me?

At work today I went in to Settings and turned off WiFi completely. I was getting tired of the prompt to join the WiFi at work everytime I checked my email (work Wifi doesn't allow personal devices on it). To my surprise, the initial connection to hook up to my .Mac email and URL's with Safari is at least twice as fast as is has been. It use to take at least a minute or more to get connected and then get the "Checking for mail" blurb. Now it's maybe 20 seconds tops. Is it just me? Did AT&T open stuff up today? Did everyone know this already? Whatever the case, I'm keeping WiFi off unless I'm somewhere I can actually log on to the WiFi network.
Dave

Doesn't the iPhone try using Wi-Fi if it's turned on and there's a hotspot around? I think that contributes to both the prompts and the lag in connecting to edge, perhaps. I've noticed similar behavior at my work (I can't login to my work's wifi anyway) though not to as an extreme of a degree.