Posted: 19th Jan, 2012 By: MarkJ
Wireless Hotspot operator
BT Openzone has announced that its national UK network of Wi-Fi Hotspots, which provides
public wireless internet access to those within range, has continued to "
rapidly expand" and now includes more than
3.5 Million access points (up from 2 Million at Q4-2010) in homes, independent businesses and city centres.
According to BT's breakdown of the figures, you can now find most of their Hotspots in
South East England (London is already known to be one of the world's largest Hotspot markets) where more than 500,000 reside. By comparison
North East England had the smallest proportion of 99,000.
John Weaver, BT’s South East Director, said:
"BT is already leading the charge in broadband services with the roll out of faster speeds across the South East and the rapid growth of Wi-Fi hotspots increases the ways consumers and businesses can get online.
This is fantastic news for the South East and another example of major investment by BT in the country’s communications network. This huge growth in the number of hotspots takes flexible working from the home to wherever you need to be and brings the internet right to your fingertips."
BTOpenzone WiFi Hotspots - Partial UK Regional Breakdown
* South East - 500,000
* South West - 330,000
* Scotland - 320,000
* Yorkshire and the Humber - 205,000
* Wales - 170,000
* North East - 99,000
In reality the vast.. vast majority of BT's Hotspots actually come from customers of their fixed line BT
Total Broadband ISP packages, many of whom freely share their home Wi-Fi out over the operators
FON service with other members and BTOpenzone users. Sadly BT doesn't say how many professional (non-FON / non-Business Hubs) Hotspots they have, although in 2010 it stood at about 4,000.
UPDATE 6th February 2012BTOpenzone today confirmed that their total has exceeded 3.5 Million hotspots. We have updated the article from "3 Million" to "3.5 Million" accordingly.