BT wireless LAN is go

The first trials of BT's public wireless internet project go live today under the brand name Openzone.

BT plans to offer 11Mbps wireless internet access using the increasingly popular 802.11b standard in a range of public areas or 'hotspots', such as cafes, hotels and motorway service stations.

The full-scale launch of the service will be on 1 August, when licensing changes come into force legalising 802.11b for commercial use.

Hilton Hotels, Earl's Court exhibition centre, Excel exhibition centre and the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent have been confirmed as the first sites for the trial, though the company is in discussion with numerous other partners.

BT aims to have 70 hotspots live by the end of the year, and 4,000 wireless hotspots across the UK by 2005.

The first triallists will be BT's own staff and some employees from Motorola, which has been helping to build the network.

The company has announced three pricing models - 'all-you-can-eat' monthly tariff will cost 'less than' £95 plus VAT, and a 10p plus vat per minute tariff.

The company will also make a daily use service available, but this will not launch until the end of August. BT would not confirm prices at this time.

BT is initially pitching the service at its corporate customers, with an offering for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) launched in late summer and a consumer offer at an unspecified later date.

However, individuals without corporate accounts will be allowed to use the day ticket service when it becomes available.

These tariffs are relatively expensive compared to the US, where public wireless LAN services have been available for some time.

US wireless LAN company Boingo charges $74.95 (£49.77) for an unlimited monthly access package. Rival Joltage charges $24.99 (£16.59) for a month with 3,600 minutes connection time and a 500MB download allowance.

BT hopes that the wireless LAN business will contribute £30m of revenue by 2005.

However, security remains a problem on wireless LANs, and BT recommends using an end-to-end security solution such as a VPN over its wireless LANs to ensure that data remains protected from snooping.