Telekom Austria has announced the launch of a WLAN pilot project where 26 telephone booths will be converted into wireless broadband internet hot spots providing wireless e-mail and internet access. This follows Telekom Austria’s 2003 launch of the “MultimediaStation” – telephone booths with broadband Internet.
With some 23,000 telephone booths throughout Austria, Telekom Austria has the ideal infrastructure for the expansion of hot spot public access points. WLAN radio signals can be received within a radius of up to 100 meters surrounding the telephone booth or other installation locations such as schools. Anyone with a WLAN-capable appliance can easily have free use of broadband internet from the hot spots. A list of hot spot public access points is available at http://HotSpots.Aon.at.
Rudolf Fischer, COO Wireline at Telekom Austria, said: “There is a growing trend towards the need for increased mobile access to the internet in the residential area, in particular through laptops. In response to this demand we are piloting wirelessly linked telephone booths – ‘AonHotSpots’. This will be the first time this has been done in Austria.”
Telekom Austria’s WLAN pilot project is in line with the eEurope action plan and demonstrates the company’s commitment in closing the ‘digital divide’ – the infrastructure gap between urban and rural populations – via sustainable investments in communication networks.
Telekom Austria’s first 26 hot spots in Perg, Upper Austria, were opened with an official celebration on June 9, 2004. Telekom Austria has invested over 135 million Euros in the Upper Austrian telecommunications market in just the past four years. A large part of this went into the expansion of the broadband network with ADSL technology.