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Your standard high street cash machines have grown a lot since their inception. They started out as very basic machines which could display balance and withdraw cash. Nowadays many allow you to get statements, top up your mobile phone; change your bank details and more – usually all from a colour screen, as well.
Over the next 5 years, cash machines will now have an added feature and one you don’t even need your credit card in order to access – they’ll be functioning as makeshift hotspots for wireless broadband, allowing you to access the internet from anywhere within range of one.
Well, you can access the internet providing you’ve paid for it. The deal is being sorted out between Cashbox (an ATM supplier) and BT, who will be using it to extend the range of their Openzone network. You need to pay to access the network, although many users who are already BT customers get free minutes included in many of their fixed line packages, so just under 5 million people should benefit from increased Wi-Fi capabilities.
Ciaran Morton, CEO of Cashbox said: “As a customer focused business, we are continually looking for ways to extend our service offering, and with exciting initiatives such as this we are providing our customers with additional opportunities to utilise the ATM machines. May was an all time record month for transaction levels as people are finding cash preferable to credit in the current economic climate.”
Only ten machines in unspecified locations will be upgraded to begin with, but when the project is finished over 2,500 machines across the country will be able to function as hotspots. It’s not yet known which boxes have been selected to be the first.
Manager of Openzone, Chris Bruce said: “We are seeing huge demand for Wi-Fi in the leisure and hospitality sector. BT customers can also connect at over 190,000 residential and commercial hotspots in the UK and Ireland.”
If you’re a BT customer, we recommend you check your contract to see if you get a monthly allowance of minutes on the network, as this might just prove useful in the future.
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