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BT Openzone coming soon to O2 iPhone Users

M

matt.smith

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
8
1
London, UK
I'm not sure if this has been posted before - but has anyone noticed the following in the small print on the O2 iPhone website at the moment:

Unlimited Wi-Fi is available at any of the 9,500 Wi-Fi hotspots from our partners The Cloud and BT Openzone (available from 11 July 2008)
Click to expand...

Despite living in London, i've only ever found 1 of these 9,500 "The Cloud" hotspots - and that has recently been switched off. However, wherever I am - I always seem to get a BT Openzone hotspot! This is great news! (if not a little surprising on BT's part!)
 
matt.smith said:
I'm not sure if this has been posted before - but has anyone noticed the following in the small print on the O2 iPhone website at the moment:



Despite living in London, i've only ever found 1 of these 9,500 "The Cloud" hotspots - and that has recently been switched off. However, wherever I am - I always seem to get a BT Openzone hotspot! This is great news! (if not a little surprising on BT's part!)
Click to expand...

you can do that today... I use it all the time at the airport LHR.. What you can't do is connect to a BT openzone partners WIFI.

--Zed
 
Damn. So no starbucks then... which is all T-mobile. Was hoping the partner thing would work.

Still, Costa Coffee went to BT Openzone recently so it's not all bad news.
 
Yes, i believe it works already. And also -- I agree you can never find a freaking Cloud! At least I can not (just once a few months back)
 
Ahh it was Cafe Nero not Costa Coffee.. same difference (I go there for a snack sometimes.. don't drink coffee anyway).

Yeah once you take the roaming sites out it does drop quite dramatically!

Let's hope O2 get more partner deals.

I don't know where cloud are concentrated... their site list isn't a lot of use as it lists many places that I know do not have cloud wifi (eg. the local McDonalds, which has no wifi and never has.. being situated right next door to Starbucks (and overlapping their wifi) it probably never will either).
 
Do you know if this is only for UK hotspots or for the internationals one too?

Thanks
 
johnwin said:
The deals will be country specific - see your 'anointed' carrier for details.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I understand this is only for UK but what I would like to know if I would be able to access this service in another country. E.g. in a airport.

I have checked the hotspots and they have in most of the European airports.

cheers
 
The small print says "Unlimited Wi-Fi is available at any of the 9,500 Wi-Fi hotspots from our partners The Cloud and BT Openzone "

Doesn't say UK only..
 
TonyHoyle said:
The small print says "Unlimited Wi-Fi is available at any of the 9,500 Wi-Fi hotspots from our partners The Cloud and BT Openzone "

Doesn't say UK only..
Click to expand...

yes, but maybe that is just only part of the small print...

I can't find in BT's website if they have 9500 in UK or worldwide
 
TonyHoyle said:
The small print says "Unlimited Wi-Fi is available at any of the 9,500 Wi-Fi hotspots from our partners The Cloud and BT Openzone "

Doesn't say UK only..
Click to expand...

Under the heading roaming it says:

"Roaming

All BT Openzone subscribers can get online in the UK and worldwide using the Wi-Fi networks of BT Openzone partner operators. Selected voucher customers can now do the same in many countries!"

So maybe o2 uk subscribers can use hotspots overseas. Double cool.

BUT will iPhone contract owners be classified as 'BT Openzone subscribers' or is the iPhone deal limited to uk hotspots???
 
The cloud claims 9,235 hotspots in the UK (I don't believe them.. but that's the headline figure).

BT Openzone has about 7,800 (as of 2005)

O2 claim that adds up to 9,500.

:confused:

I can only assume that it's not all BT hotspots and not all cloud hotspots.
 
A lot of pubs my way have Itboxes which supposedly have The Cloud connections. In my experience however about 1 in 5 actually work. I usually get to connect, but when I try to load anything it goes back to Edge/GPRS.

I'm not holding my breath with Openzone, but I suppose it might be better.
 
TonyHoyle said:
The cloud claims 9,235 hotspots in the UK (I don't believe them.. but that's the headline figure).

BT Openzone has about 7,800 (as of 2005)

O2 claim that adds up to 9,500.

:confused:

I can only assume that it's not all BT hotspots and not all cloud hotspots.
Click to expand...

Think you have to be careful with what is a BT Openzone spot and what is a partner spot that BT Openzone customers can access. I think for example, The cloud spots are included in the Openzone packages, but not vice versa.

IIRC BT is about 3000, The Cloud is about 6000 (subject to my previous post)
 
BT with partners is 30,000+ hotspots. T-Mobile alone are 20,000 (according to their website anyway). BT don't give current figures alas but I can see they're not that big (if T-Mobile plus partners is only 30,000 then it makes them twice as big as all their partners - including BT and Cloud - combined).

I can imagine that cloud got their numbers by selling boxes to pubs - their list is mostly pubs.. they should really be verifying these boxes are actually connected and running though, otherwise their hotspot listings become pretty meaningless. At least with BT they're reasonably accurate.
 
I don't know why you guys are finding it difficult to find Cloud hotspots. I have used the all over the place. Off the top of my head, Waterloo Station, Reading Station, my local (otherwise useless) pub in Farnham, Birmingham's Bullring, some weird telephone box near the Mall. Loads of places.

That's said, BT openzone is going to be a treat, but its old news. I tried it a a roadchef the other day, and it wasn't working yet.
 
redrog said:
A lot of pubs my way have Itboxes which supposedly have The Cloud connections. In my experience however about 1 in 5 actually work.
Click to expand...

Isn't that the truth. :(

In my local area there is not one "The Cloud" hotspot working properly.

My experience in Central London has not been much better either.
Fingers crossed the BT Openzone works out better
 
arkitect said:
Isn't that the truth. :(

In my local area there is not one "The Cloud" hotspot working properly.

My experience in Central London has not been much better either.
Fingers crossed the BT Openzone works out better
Click to expand...

and what is worse I have no idea who I need to complain to - the pub, itbox or the cloud

i know the pubs claim no responsibility but...
 
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