Hazel Allsopp of Purple WiFi writes:

Retail and hospitality businesses have long been aware of the need to offer free WiFi access to their customers. The use of smart phones is becoming increasingly widespread, and people expect to get online wherever they are, whatever they’re doing.

The latest large brand to recognise this is Intercontinental Hotels Group, who announced last month that they would be offering free access to 71 million loyalty scheme members’ worldwide. The decision was made in response to a survey in which 43% of guests said they wouldn’t stay in a hotel if it didn’t offer free WiFi.

O2 UK is the latest mobile network to offer its customers free WiFi on the London Underground, thanks to a wholesale deal with Virgin Media. It’ll be available from June.

Customers with Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and EE - plus Virgin Media - are already able to use the service.

New research published by WiFi provider The Cloud shows that more than 10 million Brits use public WiFi each week via smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

That figure, which comes from data collected by market research company Canadean in November 2012, equates to 22% of the UK adult population.

A promotional deal with EE has seen 40 black cabs in London and 10 in Birmingham turned into mobile WiFi hotspots. Each taxi has been given its own 4G data connection via a MiFi wireless router.

The promotional 4GEE campaign will run for three months.

Although BT has just won a sizeable chunk of 2.6GHz spectrum in Ofcom’s UK mobile auction, the company isn’t planning to launch a national mobile phone network.

Instead, it’s planning to use the bandwidth in conjunction with its existing WiFi network to provide customers with mobile broadband services.