After deploying in London, Leeds and Glasgow, BT has announced the first roll-out of 14 InLinkUK smart kiosks in central Southampton (Hampshire), which claim to offer the “UK’s fastest free public Wi-Fi” (‘up to’ 1Gbps), free UK phone calls, USB device charging and a range of other digital services to people in the vicinity.
The InLinkUK kiosks stem from a partnership between BT, Intersection (LinkNYC) and advertising company Primesight. The plan is that they will eventually replace over 1,000 pay phones in major cities across the UK and so far 160 have already been installed. Funding for the kiosks is extracted via revenues from advertising on the large HD digital displays.
Apparently the first ones to go live in Southampton can be found on Hanover Buildings and London Road. Further locations are expected to join them in the coming weeks, including Southampton Central railway station and areas within the town walls. However some limited speed testing conducted last year (here) suggested that the kiosks may unsurprisingly struggle to get close to the stated peak of 1Gbps via WiFi.
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Wireless broadband signals and network congestion are of course notoriously difficult things to tackle in a real-world environment. But this shouldn’t overshadow the fact that the kiosks still offer a useful set of features, while their WiFi remains pretty fast for a free hotspot.
Stacey King, BT’s Regional Director for London and South East England, said:
“Today’s launch in Southampton brings the fastest free public wi-fi in the UK to the South Coast. Residents and visitors alike are set to benefit from this new state-of-the-art ‘phone box’, where they can also make calls for free, access local information and even charge their ‘phone when out and about.”
Since the first InLink was installed in June last year, more than 120,000 people have subscribed to the service’s free Wi-Fi and it’s claimed that they’ve also saved people more than £442,000 in free calls.
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