UK fixed-line incumbent BT has launched a new mobile app that will allow its broadband customers to automatically connect their smartphones to the firm’s nationwide Wi-Fi network. The ‘BT FON’ app is available to customers that own an iPhone or Android phone and is downloadable free of charge via the respective app stores, Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android Market. BT said the app provides unlimited access to its 1.6 million Wi-Fi hotspots in the UK, which it claims is the country’s largest Wi-Fi network. The app also includes a mapping service which is updated weekly so that customers can find their nearest hotspot. Although free access to the network is already offered to BT’s ‘Total Broadband’ customers, users without the app are required to locate and log into the hotspot manually using the smartphone menu, which can often locate Wi-Fi networks that are not free to use.

“This free app makes accessing Wi-Fi so simple you don’t even have to think about it,” said John Petter, managing director, for BT Retail Consumer. “This represents real value to our customers at a time when more and more people are using their mobile phone to access the Internet.” BT’s Wi-Fi network is made up of two types of hotspots, BT Openzone and BT FON. The BT Openzone hotspots can be accessed in places such as airports, hotels, coffee shops, motorway service stations and city centres, the firm said, while BT FON is the operator’s “rapidly expanding” Wi-Fi sharing community that allows users to share connections.