BT vouchers for wifi

In a further bid to position wifi as the more economical alternative to international cellular roaming for business users, UK incumbent BT has introduced a range of international wifi vouchers.

The vouchers offers customers 500 minutes of access – which can be used for internet access of VoIP telephony – for £28  ($57.83) in the US and £40 (EUR57.41) in Europe.

BT unveiled the product on Tuesday, at the same time announcing a deal with internet provider iBahn – which goes live in November – that will see an extra 1,200 hotels added to the 9,600 where BT Openzone customers can already access wifi internationally.

The UK carrier argued that a prepaid voucher option would give its enterprise customers greater control over their communications spend when overseas, comparing the per minute cost of its vouchers – £0.056 (US) and £0.08 (Europe) – to the £0.34/minute call cost enforced by the European Commission’s roaming price cap, introduced earlier this year.

Chris Bruce, General Manager of BT Openzone, said:  “More than ever before the building blocks are in place to provide widespread coverage and cheaper calls for those who want to call home or access the internet when abroad using wifi. The international travel voucher makes business travel simple, convenient and hassle-free and our agreement with iBahn gives travellers even more opportunity to take advantage of it.

“For too long, travellers have had no choice but to be forced onto high roaming charges when making calls outside the UK.  Even customers who pick up their phone whilst abroad face huge hidden charges for receiving incoming calls. Thanks to the new voucher, travellers have a choice and can make cheap calls with a convenient voucher in a whole host of locations – on the internet there is no such thing as a charge for an incoming call.”

BT was recently revealed as an investor in Fon, a Spanish wifi operation that encourages users to share their domestic wifi connections with other users in the hope that coverage can be dramatically increased.