O2 has broadened its Wi-Fi portfolio to cover 104 stations across the United Kingdom’s rail network.
The UK operator has signed a deal with Govia Thameslink Railway, which operates the Thameslink, Southern, Gatwick Express and Great Northern services, to offer Wi-Fi to the hundreds of thousands of travellers who go through its stations each day.
Since it soft launched last month, more than 150,000 users have access the Wi-Fi networks across the various stations.
Enrique Fernandez-Pino, Group IT and Strategy Director from The Go-Ahead Group, the parent of Govia, said: “We are always looking for ways to take care of our passengers’ journeys, so offering Wi-Fi at people’s local stations allows them to enjoy free and fast internet access as they wait for their train service.”
Robert Franks from O2 Commerce added: “O2 is proud to add the GTR network to our 13,000 existing hotspots. O2 Wifi will help improve passenger experiences through providing a service which is fast, safe and open to all. It also provides GTR with a new channel to communicate to their customers, so they can keep them up to date through service updates on their Wifi landing pages, and through access to apps.”
The UK has been a busy market for Wi-Fi deployments in 2016. Earlier this year, Arqiva completed the installation of enterprise networks across 700 branches of the Nationwide Building Society.
A recent report from IHS predicted the carrier Wi-Fi market will double over the next five years, driven by the likes of Hotspot 2.0 deployments and network functions virtualisation.