Here’s news to make you cheer if you’re a T-Mobile user. Not content with giving users the best mobile Web data package with Web n Walk, T-Mobile are also throwing in free Wi-Fi access at over 1,000 locations, including StarBucks, airports, train stations and petrol stations.

You need Web n Walk Plus or Web n Walk Max plans to get the free service – otherwise, you’ll have pay £5 an hour to access the networks. But given that Web n Walk already provides 3GB a month of data for a fixed cost over super-speedy HSDPA, it was already a bargain, and this new offer just makes it unbeatable!

What’s prompted the company the be so generous? Well, it’s no secret that T-Mobile’s network coverage has been suffering lately compared with the competition. There are network blackspots across the country, and not just with 3G. I spent xmas at my parents in Devon, where I could get no coverage at all (hence the lack of posts – my parents only have dial up access!)

That’s why T-Mobile has just joined forces with Three so that the two network operators can share one another’s networks in areas where they don’t have full 3G coverage.

Now with a network that’s already stretched, Web n Walk has perhaps become a victim of its own success. What happens when you offer people flat rate mobile Web access at near-broadband speeds? They access the Web over the mobile network more often, and for larger data transfers. Worse, they don’t just do this on their mobile phone – with HSDPA, they’ll even use it as a modem for their PC, which will consume even more of the network’s precious capacity.

I’m sure what T-Mobile are finding is that people are using their network in place of Wi-Fi, as even if you’re in a Wi-Fi hotspot, it makes sense to use your phone as a modem, given that it’s a fixed-rate cost that you already pay for, rather than shell out £5 an hour on Wi-Fi.

Indeed, that’s exactly what I’m doing now! I’m currently writing this in a TraveLodge hotel (I don’t move house ’till Friday, so I’m still officially homeless!), which has Wi-Fi, but which charges me £5 an hour for the privilege. Fortunately, my Nokia E90 is an HSDPA-equipped 3.5G modem that uses T-Mobile’s Web n Walk, so it’s acting as a very nice connection to the Internet without requiring me to spend £20 a night in order just to blog.

As more and more people realise this, the strain on T-Mobile’s network will undoubtedly get worse. The best way round this, therefore, is to offer users an alternative, so that they start shifting bits on someone else’s network: specifically, across the fixed line Internet via Wi-Fi, rather than via T-Mobile mobile network and its overcrowded and sparsely populated basestations

Well, that’s my theory anyway. Whatever the reason, as an existing T-Mobile Web n Walk user, I’m extremely pleased! Now not only do I get a great data rate and seriously fast downloads (at least, when I’m not in Devon!), I also get free Wi-Fi with my coffee! Now that’s what I call service.

[Source: Telecoms.com, T-Mobile]