Posted: 02nd Feb, 2011 By: MarkJ


The Vice President and Director of BT for the
London UK 2012 Olympic Games, Stuart Hill, has confirmed that the operator is planning to deploy a public Wi-Fi (
wireless broadband) internet access network to
cover the Olympic Park while the games are on.
BT's Stuart Hill said (V3):"We are currently talking with LOCOG and internally at BT about the possibility of setting up a Wi-Fi network, and expect to reach a decision in the next three or four months.
The rise in the amount of data being consumed by mobile users since the Beijing Games in 2008 means that mobile operators want to be able to offload data from their networks. So it's sensible to think about the use of Wi-Fi technology to do this."
The move is not unexpect. The Mayor of London,
Boris Johnson, has long spoken of his plans to blanket the city with Wi-Fi in time for the games (
here) and most of the major operators are already getting involved at some level.
BT is also in the process of rolling out its new 40Mbps FTTC and 110Mbps FTTP fibre optic based broadband ISP products in the city, as well as around significant parts of the country. The operator plans to have most of London's fibre based services ready in time for the games too. We even have some useful maps of their London coverage plans (
here).