Telstra announced this week their five-year strategy to create one the world’s largest Wi-Fi networks, with 2 million hotspots within five years. Telstra aims to be the largest WiFi broadband network. A bit too optimistic? Let’s see in detail their strategy.
Telstra CEO, David Thoday said they invested $100 into this mega project. The strategy aims to offer all Australians, Telstra customers or not, access to two million Wi-Fi hotspots across the nation. The network is scheduled to launch early in 2015 allowing people to connect at more than 12 million international hotspots.
What is a Hotspot?
A Wi-Fi hotspot is an area with an accessible wireless network. The term is most often used to refer to wireless networks in public areas like airports and coffee shops. Some are free and some require fees for use, but in either case, they can be handy when you are on the go. You can even create your own mobile hotspot using a cell phone or an external device that can connect to a cellular network. And you can always set up a WiFi network at home. Hotspots are already well implemented in Europe.
How Does It Work
To take advantage of public WiFi hotspots or your own home-based network, the first thing you’ll need to do is make sure your computer has the right gear. First, you will need to be a Telstra customer or to become one to get the new modem to set up your Wi-Fi broadband. Telstra offer this new moden for $210.
Once you’ve installed a modem, your computer should be able to automatically discover existing networks. This means that when you turn your computer on in a WiFi hotspot, the computer will inform you that the network exists and ask whether you want to connect to it. It will work also for your phone and tablet.
Telstra CEO, David Thodey said the plan would usher in a new era of Wi-Fi in Australia which would help meet current data needs and deliver future capacity for the explosion of traffic expected to be delivered over Wi-Fi.
To Create The Network Telstra will
- Offer Telstra home broadband customers new gateways that allow them to securely share a portion of their bandwidth with other Telstra Wi-Fi™ customers. In exchange, they can access their own home broadband allowance at Telstra hotspots across the nation.
- Build more than 8000 Wi-Fi hotspots around the country to bring Wi-Fi internet to community areas and social precincts as well as shopping strips, business centres and transport hubs.
- Work with thousands of small businesses to bring Telstra Wi-Fi to cafes, shops and waiting rooms – putting them on the map as a destination where customers can connect.
- Partner with councils, business enterprises and governments to bring Wi-Fi to parks, stadiums and public buildings and to help create smart cities.
- Provide customers who have compatible devices with seamless access to the combined Telstra Wi-Fi network wherever it’s available using an automatic login.
Advantages To Access to Telstra Wi-Fi Network
- Telstra home broadband customers with a compatible gateway who join the Wi-Fi community can use their broadband allowance at no extra charge via domestic hotspots and connect to more than 12 million Fon-enabled hotspots globally.
- Non-Telstra customers and Telstra customers who have not joined the Wi-Fi community will be able to connect to Fon-enabled Telstra Wi-Fi hotspots for a small charge using day passes.
- The investment will enable partners to offer public Wi-Fi to patrons, visitors and communities, great for small businesses.
- Over time Telstra Wi-Fi access will be offered to Telstra mobile-only customers.
A crazy bet? Telstra announced that 500,00 people already started to use #wifination, and for the little story, over 10 million hotspots already exist in Europe.
