BT’s WiFi service now has more than 5 million hotspots in homes and commercial properties across the UK and Ireland, having added more than 20,000 new hotspots every week during the past 12 months. The company says more than 400 million connections were made on its WiFi networks between April 2012 and March 2013. Overall, 13 petabytes of data (13 billion MB) were transferred across its network in that period.
Andy Baker, CEO of BT Wi-fi, said “The time wi-fi users spend online and the amount of data they’re using is up across our network. People are now so confident and comfortable with their gadgets, we’ve had to meet the demand with more hotspots in a wider choice of places – on the high street and in thousands of neighbourhoods across the country.”
BT Wi-fi hotspots are free to use for BT Broadband customers, who also form part of the company’s hotspot network by sharing their home broadband service. Commercial hotspots from BT are available at high street retailers including Starbucks, GAME and John Lewis.