BT, T-Mobile join Wi-Fi alliance
Alliance plans to operate more than 26,000 hotspots around the world by year end
  
By David Legard, IDG News Service July 23, 2003
 
  British Telecommunications (BT) and T-Mobile have joined an Asian consortium called the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), which plans to be operating more than 26,000 Wi-Fi hotspots around the world by the end of this year.

   BT and T-Mobile join China Netcom Communications Group (China), Korea Telecom, Maxis Communications (Malaysia), StarHub (Singapore), and Telstra (Australia) in the alliance, which operates around 13,000 hotspots now.

T-Mobile's units in both the U.K and U.S. will be involved in the alliance, according to a WBA statement Wednesday.

The original alliance members, except for Korea Telecom, have begun a pilot trial for international Wi-Fi roaming in their four countries at over 500 Wi-Fi hotspots. Korea Telecom is expected to open its hotspots to international roamers by the end of the year as well.

There will be no extra charge for international Wi-Fi roaming during the trial, which will continue until the end of October. Telstra currently charges a minimum of A$5 (US$3.25) for the first 15 minutes of use and A$0.20 per minute after that.

Formed in March, the WBA has said its intention is to build a global Wi-Fi network under a single brand identity, utilizing a common technology platform.