Mobile phone customers from all networks have been granted access to a new network of WiFi hotspots being launched by O2.

The new network, which will begin with sites being set up on O2′s premises, aims to help overcome users’ reservations about using WiFi due to the quality of service and difficulties with signing in.

O2′s New Business Development Director Tim Sefton told The Telegraph: “Only 20 per cent of people who have access to free public WiFi on O2 tariffs use it, despite the majority of devices being WiFi enabled.”

The network of hotspots will provide a “premium, managed” service, according to O2, which aims to extend the network to double the size of that offered by BT Openzone and The Cloud combined by 2013.

In a further statement, O2 said: “O2 WiFi will introduce a new level of customer engagement, driving increased value for both the WiFi hosting venue and the user by bringing together O2 WiFi with the capabilities of O2 Media and O2 Money to offer the potential to deliver relevant timely content that customers want in a format that suits them.”

The offer almost seems too good to be true, particularly from the perspective of non-O2 customers, who will be able to access the WiFi hotspots without having paid the company a penny.

But the offer has already stood up well to scrutiny from the likes of Silicon.com’s Natasha Lomas, who dug a little deeper into O2′s motives for its great WiFi giveaway.

She said: “The WiFi free-for-all can be seen as a measure of exactly how keen mobile operators are to offload our data from their cellular networks. O2 wants mobile users to log on to WiFi so they can log off 1its 3G network and free up bandwidth for other data-demanding customers.

“Having convinced mobile users to gobble lots of data by offering unlimited data tariffs in the early years of mobile broadband, operators now have the task of reining usage back to a level that sits more prettily on their bottom lines. It’s all about ARPU – average revenue per user. More data has not historically translated into fatter ARPUs for operators – quite the opposite: it’s been gobbling up their ARPU.”