2degrees unveils free Wellington WiFi trial

2degrees has unveiled plans to begin a free three-month WiFi trial in Wellington CBD, designed to provide its customers with unlimited wireless data in the capital.

Revealed this morning, the telco has partnered with CityLink and its recently launched WiFi service, inviting over 20,000 customers in the city to trial the service.

"This trial gives customers commercial-free WiFi access across a concentrated geographical area of the Wellington CBD rather than just random "hotspots" that people need to be in very close proximity to," says Stewart Sherriff, CEO, 2degrees.

"Working with an established provider like CityLink who already has a WiFi presence across the Wellington CBD makes a potential commercial offering a lot easier to establish.

“If the trial is successful, it has the potential to be used as a blueprint for 2degrees’ WiFi offerings in other parts of the country.”

With exponential data growth on our network every year, Sherriff believes WiFi is becoming a “logical option” for mobile networks to explore further.

"Conceptually, we already understand the benefits WiFi can provide, but this trial will give us valuable insight into how it can augment our network, influence data traffic patterns and, most importantly, how it can provide additional value to our customers,” he adds.

Covering areas such as the Wellington Golden Mile, the telco says the service will cover all popular landmarks within the city, such as the Westpac Stadium and the ASB Sports Centre.

Echoing Sherriff’s comments, CityLink CEO Nick Willis believes WiFi has matured into a piece of core infrastructure for businesses, transport and event centres, universities, telecommunication companies and cities.

“CityLink is delighted to be able to provide this scale of Wi-Fi services to 2degrees for their trial,” he says.

"CityLink has the most used Public Wi-Fi in the country on cbdfree Wellington with 75000 unique monthly users, and is best positioned to provide plug and play solutions for high quality Wi-Fi Zones anywhere in New Zealand.”

Those involved in the trial will be given a password specific to their device, covering the three month trial period.