Five million free wi-fi hotspots in the UK

Getting Internet on the move is now increasingly important to us all, but it’s also important to be able to get access to high-speed mobile Internet without paying a fortune. Our Pete find that rather than using 3G, he’s able to get access to free Internet out-and-about with little fuss, and at no cost – thanks to the network of free wi-fi hotspots.

Unlike the days of BT Openzone and The Cloud, you can now get free Wifi across much of the UK. Yes, there are still plenty of pay-to-use wi-fi services, but it’s pretty easy to take advantage of free wi-fi.

Our team’s been having great results from two of the largest providers of free wi-fi:

BT Wi-fi

An email’s just dropped into the FrequencyCast inbox that we thought we’d share with you. We’ve heard today that BT now has 5 million wi-fi hotspots.

To be fair, you can only access this network for free if you get your broadband from BT. If you’re not, you can still access the service (although it’s not free and it lacks the coverage of 3G)

So how is BT able to offer so many access points? They’re able to get such a big network due to the number of homes that have one of BT’s Home Hubs. Users with a Home Hub can allow a small percentage of their bandwidth to be shared with other BT customers. As a result, BT Broadband customers can get a free connection with the majority of homes equipped with a Hub. In addition, there are loads of other hotspots at hotels, service stations and places like Starbucks. BT also partners with FON, meaning there are 3 million free hotspots outside the UK that you can access

You can find out more about BT’s free wifi network here: BT Wifi Network

Connecting is pretty easy – it'[s a case of logging onto the wireless hotspot from your smartphone, laptop or tablet, then using the web browser to log in. We find it a lot easier to use the free BT Wifi app, which makes logging in simple. It also has a handy map to show you local wi-fi coverage – and the map shows that there’s quite a lot of free coverage out there (see the example below – ‘blue’ is coverage). The app is available free on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Android and iPad.

o2 Wifi

o2’s network is nowhere near as large as BT’s, but it has the advantage of being available at a range of locations, and also being free. You don;t even need to be an o2 customer. Log on for free at McDonalds, Costs Coffee, o2 stores and Subway. There’s also a free app available for smartphone users.

You can find out more about BT’s free wifi network here: o2 Wi-fi

Mobile wi-fi user?

Any thoughts on mobile wi-fi? Let us know – this may be something we feature in the next show…