BT is claiming the crown as the UK's largest Wi-Fi provider today after it has announced there are now over 2 million hotspots in its network across the UK. These are available mainly through homes and businesses, but also at high-street locations such as coffee shops and hotels, major city centres, and the latest addition being a trial at a London Underground Tube station. These different locations of the Wi-Fi estate are made up of BT Openzone hotspots, BT FON Wi-Fi Community, and BT Openzone hotspots available through BT Business hubs.
"Demand for wireless access is growing at a record rate, we've have added more than 780,000 hotspots in the last six months and will continue to meet the demand as more and more smart-phone, laptop, tablet, iPod and e-reader users choose WiFi to stay connected when they are out and about. What's more our BT Total Broadband customers have free and unlimited access to the largest WiFi network in the UK included in their broadband package."
Gavin Patterson, (Chief Executive Officer) BT Retail
Just 8 months ago, BT were touting their one million strong hotspots, and the company has managed to double this within this short period. The breakdown of figures between the different hotspots is 3,900 Openzone hotspots (an increase of 100), 195,000 BT Business Hubs offering BT Openzone, and 1,955,000 BT FON hotspots.
staff member)
about 1 year ago
"These are available mainly through homes and businesses" - and I wonder what proportion know they are providing them :-)
They're a darned nuisance when windoze decides to latch onto an unsecure FON channel rather than the correct secure one on a home hub.