Limitless cheek
For some reason, BT has singled out O2 for derision in order to promote the extension of ‘unlimited' access for all BT Total Broadband customers to its BT Openzone and BT FON wireless hotspots.
BT clearly sees the move by mobile operators to put a fixed cap on nearly all monthly mobile broadband packages as an opportunity to promote its Wi-Fi hotspots as an alternative form of connectivity.
Where previously BT Total Broadband customers got access to its hotspots, with the number of minutes per month capped, they now get unlimited access, which we would expect to still be subject to some kind of ‘fair use' policy.
To illustrate how much more generous it is than those tight-fisted mobile operators, BT has focused on O2, although capped mobile broadband is now the norm. "Wi-Fi gets wider with BT Total Broadband as O2 rations 3G," proclaimed the headline of BT's press release, before sneering: "We thought rationing ended in the 50s."
And BT wasn't finished there, BT consumer MD, John Petter, had this to say: "Because of the growing number of BT customers with mobile devices such as tablet computers and smartphones, we know that mobile access to the internet is needed more than ever before. Now that operators like O2 are rationing 3G, BT Total Broadband customers can find fast Wi-Fi connections all over the UK's towns and cities with unlimited internet access from 1.5 million hotspots."
We're not sure what O2 has done to BT, to attract this malevolent attention. Maybe BT is just bitter that it sold O2 six years ago, just as mobile communications moving up to the next level.
