Orange taps Cloud for wifi access

UK mobile operator Orange teamed up with hotspot network The Cloud this week, extending Orange users’ wifi access to more than 10,000 hotspots.

Orange already has wifi agreements in place with BT OpenZone, France Telecom and WeRoam.

The service can be accessed through Orange’s Business Everywhere mobile datacard offering, which includes a single datacard with wifi, HSDPA, 3G, EDGE, GPRS and 2G capabilities and automatically chooses the fastest connection possible.

“Our business customers want easy to use, secure communication. They are less worried about who owns the infrastructure and naturally more interested in a service that works effectively. Partnering with The Cloud enables us to extend our high quality service to thousands more locations in an instant,” said Anthony Keyworth, director of products for Orange Business Services.

The Cloud has rolled out a new service provided by online mapping and location based services specialist Multimap, which allows users to receive a text message with the location of their nearest Cloud hotspot or find one based on postcode.

Multimap’s Storefinder4Mobile service automatically finds the user’s location and are sent a map and an address.

Users are charged £1 for the request message, while the subsequent message with the location is charged at standard network rates.