PUBLIC wireless broadband, or 'Wi-Fi', has arrived on the south coast as BT launched its first 'Openzone' sites in the region.
The live sites include the Hilton Hotel in Southampton and mean business travellers and commuters on the south coast can stop and surf the Internet or send large files using the power of BT's high-speed broadband network.
All they need is for their laptop or PDA to be configured with a Wireless LAN card and to be registered with BT's scheme.
The Southampton site forms part of BT Openzone's network of 80 sites across the UK. The Hilton hotel group, which was one of the first businesses to trial BT Openzone, has demonstrated its commitment to mobile broadband by rolling out the hotspots to 36 of their hotels across England, Scotland and Wales.
Hilton has agreed to install 15 more hotspots at further hotels in the future. Wi-Fi - which is expected to be half the price of 3G and three times faster - is tipped to be the fastest growing mobile technology of 2003.
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