Free Wi-Fi is due to be boosted across the London Underground as EE and Vodafone join Virgin Media offering free Wi-Fi to its customers. The new 4G operator EE ( which owns Orange and T-Mobile ) currently offers free Wi-Fi on a UK national basis to its customers via an agreement to use BT's Wi-Fi hot-spots.
Virgin Media has provided 80 London Underground stations with free Wi-Fi to all consumers but this will end early in 2013. This will then only be available to Virgin Media’s own customers for free. Virgin Media has previously said that it was willing to lease out Wi-Fi capacity to other mobile operators.
Both EE and Vodafone have now confirmed it will offer free Wi-Fi access to its customers using the London Underground but at the current time its not clear if they will be leasing the existing Virgin Media Wi-Fi network or setting up their own e.g. EE and BT would set up a totally separate Wi-Fi network for its customers to use free of charge or they'd let its customers “piggy-back” free of charge on Virgin Media’s existing Wi-Fi network.
EE and Vodafone will offer the service to its customers from early 2013 and to us here at 4G.co.uk it seems likely that O2 and Three could well offer the same sort of Wi-Fi service to its customers otherwise there customers would need to pay to use Wi-Fi whilst on the London Underground.