NEWS BT is to slash the prices of its Openzone service in the hope of encouraging more companies to embrace Wi-Fi. The telco is creating a new corporate service with an up-front fee of £5 a month for each user, with additional charges depending on how much use is made of the Openzone network. The new contract terms will be introduced over the coming weeks.
Dave Hughes, BT's CEO of wireless broadband, told ZDNet UK that Openzone's existing tariffs have been completely revised - with particular focus on the unlimited access product, which currently costs £85 per month per user.
Hughes said a single employee's Wi-Fi use is typically sporadic, depending whether mostly they're in the office or out on business in a given month.
"We listened to the customers who have been trialling Openzone. They didn't want to pay £85 per month for each of a thousand users, but they do want all their employees to be able to use Wi-Fi some of the time."
On top of the £5 per user per month fee, companies that sign up will also be charged 5p per minute when they access the Openzone network. The new rate is better value than the £85 flat rate for any company whose employees use Wi-Fi for an average of less than one hour a day. Hughes said that typical corporate Wi-Fi users log on twice a week.
Hughes cautioned, though, that the product will only be available to firms that commit to a significant number of users - probably in excess of 100 - and a large number of minutes of access each month. For companies that can't make that guarantee, most of the existing subscriptions models will remain, such as BT Openzone 300, which gives users 300 minutes of Wi-Fi access per month for £20 per month per user.
The unlimited access product - often cited in evidence by people who have claimed that Wi-Fi in the UK is too expensive - is likely to be withdrawn.
Last month, BT signed deals with Vodafone, Orange and O2 that will let the three mobile operators offer Openzone access to their customers - a move that turned BT into a Wi-Fi wholesaler. Hughes revealed that BT is looking to secure similar deals with fixed-line operators, and forecast that at least ten ISPs would have come on board by next April.
"If you're a broadband provider that offers your users certain portals and services, it's obvious that some of those users will want to be able to access them when they're away from home," Hughes said.
Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK
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1. Nico Macdonald
The WiFi providers are missing the point about pricing. Being always on is a key aspect of WiFi, as it is of broadband, particularly for activities such as instant messaging. People may pay £5 to get their email on the road but they won't pay £5/hour or more to be on IM. However if you are out of the office IM is one of the best ways to maintain 'presence' with your colleagues. Ideally WiFi access would be charged by data transfer rather than time online, which is how Orange (and probably other mobile networks) charge for GPRS.
If T-Mobile and BT Openzone insist on per-minute charging they should at least make it easier to logon and off. T-Mobile assigns users a complex and unmemorable login, making this process painful at best. Openzone's service is better but still a poor user experience.
WiFi providers would do well to look at how people really want to user their services, and address some ease of use issues while they are at it.