It can be incredibly irritating when you have a mobile broadband dongle and you haul your laptop or netbook down to the nearest cafe or pub only to discover that you can't get a signal. Or you can't access the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot. Thankfully for O2 customers help is at hand as O2 has just announced a deal which enables O2 mobile broadband customers to get access to thousands of BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots.
iPhone users have been able to use this service for free for quite some time so their dongle carrying brethren can finally breathe a sigh of relief. BT Openzone hotspots are all over the place, including most branches of Starbucks. This builds on the unlimited Wi-Fi that O2 customers already get with their O2 mobile broadband tariff.
In other good news O2 has also decided to upgrade its connection management software. This upgrade appears to be relatively trouble free for O2 mobile broadband customers. The new software will copy existing Wi-Fi profiles from your laptop, so you can carry on working or surfing seamlessly after the upgrade. The upgrade is currently only available for use with Windows software.
Existing O2 mobile broadband customers can take advantage of the new features after the connection manager upgrade, which they should be able to get hold of from the 29th June. New customers will get their mitts on the extended Wi-Fi coverage and the new connection manager software from the end of July.