Hot Spots & WiFi

At the centre of each hotspot is a Wireless Access Point, which communicates with your laptop's or PDA's WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) card.

The hotspots support the IEEE 802.11b & IEEE 802.11g wireless standards, both of which have been widely-adopted. They use radio frequencies in the 2.4GHz range, similar to the technology used by some cordless telephone handset and to Bluetooth.

Each hotspot has a network name (a Service Set Identifier, or SSID) that uniquely identifies it. The WiFi card on your laptop needs to quote this SSID in order to use the hotspot. Newer operating systems, such as Windows XP will usually detect the presence of a hotspot, via it's SSID, and simply offer you the chance to connect to it.

With older operating systems, you may have to configure the network card yourself to know about the hotspot's SSID. Exact configurations vary from card to card; you should have documentation that came with your laptop.

You will need an account with an ISP that offers WiFi access such as BT Openzone who offer access to a network of about 1,300 hotspots in the UK.; there are others.


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