Free unlimited WiFi for everyone in London’s square mile

21-12-2012 — /europawire.eu/ — City of London Corporation, Workers, residents and visitors to London’s Square Mile will have access to unlimited free WiFi after the City of London Corporation today (17th December) agreed to extend its partnership with The Cloud, the UK’s leading – and largest – high street WiFi provider. This means the City of London is the first global financial centre to offer a comprehensive free WiFi service to everyone.

The agreement comes after a temporary arrangement with The Cloud to offer Free WiFi proved popular during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, with users of the network increasing by almost 100% compared to the previous three months. Tourists and day-trippers visited the Square Mile during that time to soak up the atmosphere and watch events like the marathon pass through it.

The Cloud was the first public WiFi provider in the UK to provide blanket, city-wide coverage when it first converted the Square Mile into a single WiFi hotspot in 2007. Until now the network has been available to anyone for 15 minutes, before moving to paid-for access. However, after today’s agreement, anyone accessing the network through their smartphone, tablet or laptop can do so for as long as they like, downloading or streaming as much information as they want.

The Cloud also provides a free content portal with the latest news from Sky News and Sky Sports News, as well as travel information including live TfL travel updates. The Cloud network also offers a family-friendly environment by filtering out adult content on its network.

The Cloud already offers 15,000 hotspots across the UK in high street and public locations where free WiFi is in increasing demand from people who want to stay connected at all times. An estimated 5m people every day pass through The Cloud network by visiting one of its partners, including major outlets like PizzaExpress, WH Smith, Caffè Nero, Eat, Greggs, Pret and Wagamama, as well as London Overground, First Great Western and Network Rail stations.

Mark Boleat, Policy Chairman at the City of London Corporation, said:
“The Square Mile is home to 10,000 residents, 400,000 workers, and five million visitors a year. As the world’s leading global financial and business centre, the City of London has one of the biggest concentrations of smartphones in the UK so having the best communications infrastructure in place to access vital information on the move is of critical importance. This partnership between the City of London Corporation and The Cloud will ensure that the Square Mile keeps pace with growing demand in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.”

Vince Russell, Managing Director of The Cloud, said:
“The demand for fast, reliable WiFi constantly increases – usage on our network nationwide has doubled in the last 12 months, for instance. The success of our free WiFi service during the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated that it’s a vital technology for visitors and shoppers as much as the City’s business community, so we’re pleased we can now make it available to everyone, especially at a time when other providers are switching to pay-for-use services.”

For more information about how to access this service, please visit: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wifi 

ENDS

Notes to editors
1. Media enquiries
Sanjay Odedra, Senior Media Officer, City of London Corporation
T 020 7332 1835 / M 07831 542856
E sanjay.odedra@cityoflondon.gov.uk

Lorna Hughes, Harvard PR for The Cloud
T 0207 861 2844 / M 07827 359 184
E lorna.hughes@harvard.co.uk

2. About the City of London Corporation
The City of London Corporation has three roles: we support London’s communities by working in partnership with neighbouring boroughs on economic regeneration and skills projects. Plus the City of London Corporation’s charity City Bridge Trust makes grants of more than £15 million annually to charitable projects across London and we also support education, with three independent schools and three City Academies – plus a primary school and the world-renown Guildhall School of Music and Drama. We also help look after key London heritage and green spaces including Tower Bridge, Museum of London, Barbican Arts Centre, City gardens, Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest, Burnham Beeches, and important ‘commons’ in south London. And – with its heart in London’s Square Mile – we also support and promote the ‘City’ as a world-leading financial and business hub, with outward and inward business delegations, high-profile civic events, research-driven policies and a long-term approach. See www.cityoflondon.gov.uk for much more on our uniquely diverse role, including the City of London Police, etc.

3. About The Cloud
The Cloud (www.thecloud.net) builds and operates Wi-Fi networks across the UK and Europe to provide the mobile media experience that consumers want. The service delivers simple, fast, reliable and cost effective broadband to millions of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, laptops and entertainment devices. The Cloud has exclusive commercial partnerships with retail, leisure, hotels, sports, transport, and entertainment and content partners to deliver its longer-term vision of a connected society. The Cloud connects almost a million devices to its Wi-Fi network each month, including Nintendo 3DS users and at locations such as the Emirates Stadium, Silverstone Race Track, the City of London, Wetherspoon, PizzaExpress, Pret A Manger, Caffe Nero, Eat, pubs, leisure facilities, restaurants and mainline stations. The Cloud is a BSkyB Company.