PRESS RELEASE
BT has met its goal to have 500,000 wi-fi hotspots across the capital for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, by launching new wi-fi hotspots along 44km (27 miles) of the River Thames. BT Wi-fi is also currently live on the Olympic Park.
The hotspots give Londoners, visitors, commercial and private river users' access to more than one hundred places to connect including the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, The London Eye, Waterloo Pier and London Bridge Pier.
BT made a public commitment in September 2011 to have half a million Greater London hotspots in place for the Games. Hotspots can also be found at high street brands, hotel chains, thousands of independent businesses and homes, plus outdoor hotspots across Westminster and Waltham Forest. More wi-fi access is good news for commuters who have been urged to work flexibly or remotely to ease congestion and keep London moving during the Games.
"We're giving Londoners and visitors as many places as possible to get online, keep in touch, work and share their experiences of the exciting events happening across London." said Andy Baker, BT Wi-fi CEO.
BT is one of the largest of the world's wi-fi providers*. BT Broadband customers have free and unlimited access to the internet away from the home at over 4 million wi-fi hotspots in the UK and Ireland, plus an extra 2 million international hotspots through BT's partner Fon. Almost 200,000 places to log-on have been added in the last three months. Millions of BT home and business broadband customers, plus millions with a wi-fi enabled device or smartphone through other BT partnership agreements, can use the hotspots for free. More than one billion wi-fi minutes were used over the last three months on BT Wi-fi.
Today's news adds to hotspots at coffee shops, train stations, airport lounges, shopping centres and city centres, plus thousands of independent business and homes. Free access is also available at more than 100 Heineken pubs and conference spaces in London.
For more information visit www.btwifi.com.
* Our Fair use policy applies. See www.btwifi.co.uk for details. BT is one of the world's largest wi-fi providers according to Informa Telecoms & Media on the measure of total number of public and "guest access" hotspots available to a provider's customers within their domestic market based on publicly-available information
This summer, BT Wi-fi will manage 500,000 public hotspots across London which will include the Olympic Park, as a result of BT being the Official Communications Services Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. With nearly 1,000 access points, BT has created the largest-ever public high density wi-fi deployment in the Olympic Park. Wi-fi is available across nine Olympic venues including the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatics Centre, Velodrome and across all the public areas of the Olympic Park in east London.
About BT
BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications services and solutions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to its customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach.
BT is the official communications services partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. BT is also a sustainability partner of the Games and a Premier Partner of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
In the year ended 31 March 2012, BT Group's revenue was £ 18,897m with profit before taxation of £ 2,445m.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit www.btplc.com.
