Telstra announces a weekend of free Wi-Fi

Telstra will this weekend open up access to its national Wi-Fi network to mark World Wi-Fi Day.

The telco is the only Australian partner for the event, which was founded by the Wireless Broadband Alliance.

World Wi-Fi Day itself is on Monday. From tomorrow until the end of Monday, access to the Telstra Air network will be free of charge for anyone. Individual sessions will be limited to half an hour, but it will be possible to reconnect to the network for further 30 minute sessions.

“We want more Australians to understand the benefits of public Wi-Fi by offering free access to everyone, regardless of which service provider they are with, at public Telstra Air locations for World Wi-Fi day,” said Telstra’s executive director, fixed products and services, Stuart Bird.

Telstra Air comprises some 400,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. In addition to hotspots located in Telstra stores and payphones, home broadband customers can opt-in to a system that turns their home router into a hotspot. The telco has also partnered with Fon, offering the telco’s customers access to overseas hotspots.

At an investor briefing in May, the telco’s CEO, Andrew Penn, said the service had more than 650,000 active customers.

“Since December we have offered mobile and new home broadband customers free unmetered data at Telstra Air hotspots in Australia,” the CEO said.

“Going forward, we will offer mobile customers 10 gigabytes of Telstra Air data as part of our new consumer plans, which further differentiate us in the market.”

The CEO said Telstra is investing very heavily in the Wi-Fi network, which is a “great strategic differentiator”.

Telstra last year officially launched the network.