{"id":2367,"date":"2012-01-07T23:37:21","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T23:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2012-01-07T23:37:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T23:37:21","slug":"europes-biggest-free-wi-fi-zone-set-for-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2367","title":{"rendered":"Europe’s biggest free wi-fi zone set for London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u00a0http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mobile operator O2 is to provide free internet to “millions” of residents and visitors in central London by launching Europe’s largest free wi-fi zone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The service will be rolled out across the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in 2012.<\/p>\n

It will be powered by a system installed on street furniture.<\/p>\n

O2 said the deal, which will have no cost to the taxpayer, will enable visitors to “make the most of what London has to offer”.<\/p>\n

Councillor Philippa Roe, cabinet member for strategic finance at Westminster City Council, said: “Westminster welcomes over a million tourists a day, is home to 250,000 residents, employs over half a million people and sees 4,000 business starts-ups each year.<\/p>\n

“Visitors to London will easily be able to share their pictures and updates of the Olympic events across social networking sites.”<\/p>\n

O2 will begin installing the Metro wireless network across Westminster this month, initially being available in limited areas before being rolled out across both boroughs.<\/p>\n

‘High quality connectivity’<\/strong><\/p>\n

London is catching up with other major cities. In Paris, several hundred individual wi-fi zones offer free connections in public parks and municipal spaces.<\/p>\n

New York also offers free wi-fi in parks and last year began to install wireless internet access at several of its subway stations.<\/p>\n

London’s service will be powered by equipment attached to lamp-posts and other existing structures on London’s streets, and should be completed by March.<\/p>\n

“This ground-breaking deal… will see us deliver high-quality connectivity across London in time for London 2012,” said Derek McManus, chief operating officer for O2.<\/p>\n

“Our longer-term aim is to expand our footprint of O2 wi-fi, which is open to everyone, and also intelligently enhance our services at street level, where people need the network the most.”<\/p>\n

John Hunt, from independent broadband review site thinkbroadband.com, said the service would be very popular, particularly for overseas tourists worried about expensive mobile costs.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, free wireless is a good thing. It allows people to get online cheaper,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

“Whether it will be able to handle the Olympics is going to be their main issue.”<\/p>\n

Underground trial<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Hunt added that London is becoming a well-connected city for residents and tourists desperate to be online while on the move.<\/p>\n

“There are other networks as well, such as The Cloud and BT Openzone, and a lot more places like coffee shops are getting people online,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, he said residents living in the free wi-fi areas should not be considering ditching their home connection.<\/p>\n

“The problem you will have is that the wireless may not be fast enough to support everything you want to do.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it will necessarily replace home broadband – it’s more a complementing service.”<\/p>\n

In November 2010,\u00a0Charing Cross became the first Underground station to offer wireless connectivity<\/a>\u00a0as part of a six-month trial.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Transport for London told the BBC that it hopes to install the service in up to 120 stations on the network in time for the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Another trial, sponsored by Finnish firm Nokia<\/a>, involved 26 free wi-fi hotspots in locations across the city.<\/p>\n

The firm said it planned to make it a fully-fledged service in 2012.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/ Mobile operator O2 is to provide free internet to “millions” of residents and visitors in central London by launching Europe’s largest free wi-fi zone. The service will be rolled out across the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in 2012. It will be powered by a system installed on street furniture. O2 said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2369,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benmgiles.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}