The Nottingham City Council and BT have today begun to switch-on a new network of free public WiFi wireless Internet hotspots, which should eventually become available to 310,000 residents and businesses within the city centre area (not to mention the millions of annual visitors).
Some 20 access points are due to go live this week and this will shortly increase to the planned total of 41, which should be enough to reach many of the most important and busiest areas (i.e. around the Market Square, the Lace Market, as well as the pedestrian routes between the Victoria shopping centre and the railway station).
The work itself is taking place in two phases with around half of the city centre network going live in August, while the second phase will be switched on during October 2015.
Nick McDonald, Councillor at Nottingham City Council, said:
“We’re delighted that we’ve been able to team up with BT to offer free and unlimited wi-fi to people while they’re out and about in Nottingham city centre. The free wi-fi will come at no cost to the council or taxpayers and in return, BT will get access to some of our lamp posts and other street furniture, allowing the company to install new mobile infrastructure.
In fact, this has the potential to be saving people money because now they will be able to browse the internet, check emails and keep in contact across social media without the need to use up their data allowance.”
Instructions on how to log on will be found on lamp posts throughout the WiFi zone. Nottingham is just one of many UK cities that are deploying or have already deployed a similar sort of WiFi network.
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