BT is rebranding its BT Fon and BT Openzone WiFi services, bringing them together under a single new brand of ‘BT Wi-fi’. The company is the Official Communications Services Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, managing half a million public hotspots across London including nine Olympic venues.
BT Openzone was the company’s commercial wireless internet product, while Fon is a community-based WiFi service.
Andy Baker, CEO of the renamed BT Wi-fi business, said “As tablets and smartphones have become increasingly popular, connecting to the internet through wi-fi has become more relevant. We are proud to offer our customers free access to one of the biggest wi-fi networks in the world and wanted to make it easier for our customers to find a hotspot and get online, it made sense for us to bring our estate under one unified brand.”
Recent research has shown that 26% of out-of-home WiFi activity involves email, followed by social networking at 20% and web browsing at 19%.