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O2 to offer free internet for all via nation-wide Wi-Fi network across the UK

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O2 UK just announced it’s working on a nation-wide Wi-Fi service in the UK. Most importantly, the service will be free for everybody and not just for O2 customers. Rollout will begin immediately starting with the current hotspots in O2’s shops and own retail centers and will soon be expanded to include strategic places around the UK.

O2 UK Free Wi-Fi

Their goal is to surpass the combined number of premium hotspots offered by BT Openzone and The Cloud in the country by 2013.

The hotspots will be premium public ones instead of residential ones with lower bandwidth, which means they will offer more stable and secure connection to everyone. New premium hotspots will be managed through partnerships with key venue owners, which will extend O2’s Wi-Fi reach from its own shops to restaurants, retail stores and indoor and outdoor locations across the UK.

User access to the Wi-Fi access points will require a simple sign-up process. The sign-up will be automatically provisioned to all customers of the company with Wi-Fi-ready handsets by the end of the year.

O2 estimates that despite the overall high availability of Wi-Fi enabled phones in the UK, only 20% of the users actually prefer Wi-Fi over 3G, mainly because they feel discouraged by the complexity of the login process and uncertainty which hotspots are free and which are not. We guess O2′s free Wi-Fi plans will change that.

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