Ok I went into my local coffee shop near work today (Hudsons nears the corner of Abeckett and Elizabeth Street).

They have an Optus wifi hotspot.

Connected to the wifi network and proceeded to open Apple and was redirected to the Optus wifi home page.

At which point it gave me instructions if I was an iPhone user, I was required to register.

Registration consisted of

1. Entering in my mobile number into a webform
2. Optus sending me an SMS within 5 seconds
3. Clicking on the link in the SMS which opened in Safari
4. On that page I was requested to enter a password and verify it
5. I was then redirected to the login page
6. Filled in my mobile number which is your username and my password
7. Was informed I was logged in and advised to leave this page open so I could re-establish my session as they have a timeout associated.
8. Opened a new tab in safari and visited Apple
9. Opened a new tab in safari and visited http://mail.google.com
10. Opened a new tab in safari and visited my work email

All worked fine and was done within minutes.

Speed was ok, but not blisteringly fast, guess because its a shared connection with the in store internet PC's.

ok so .. to be extra sure...Azure hotspots are EXCLUDED right??????

I have optus broadband at home. If I was out and about could i log in to the optus wifi hotspots with my log in details I use for my home broadband.

Anyone know if you can do this.

i wish this was the case too...as i have optus broadband but unfortunatelly they (optus) wants any excuse to charge us money so no can do

Dam. Though i think i may ask when my iphone is ready to be picked up.

nando,

my read of it is that azure is included but the first time you log on must be via an Optus wifi hot spot not an Azure one - then you have a user id and password to use on Azure- you need to select the reseller drop down and pick Optus then input your code- not proven yet as I got an error on the set up at my Optus hot spot - will try again tomorrow

I got the impression that you only get a temporary id and password; and that these login details can only be sent via SMS from an Optus wifi hotpot.

Cheers! Now we have some details! I'm rarely in the city....so yeah, not going to be using it soon. But it's still good to know!

I'll head into Melbourne Central and test out the Azure hotspot tomorrow now that I'm registered with the Optus one.

Will report back.

Damn. I hope there is a way to get onto Azure without having to visit an Optus wi-fi hotspot first. Maybe I should try and ring Optus and see if I can do my passowrd over the phone.

There's an Azure hotspot at Northland Foodcourt around the corner from Uni so I can use that one when I'm on my lunch break!

I JUST HOOKED INTO THE oPTUS WIFI AT fED sQUARE, ONLY ASKED ME TO AGREE TO THE T&c,S

OOPS caps^^

The wi-fi at Fed Square has always been free for all, not just iPhone users.

Ok I went in Melbourne Central and stood under the clock tower, the iPhone quickly found the Azure hotspot.

Visiting any website brings up the Azure login page from there I choose the 'Login to reseller account' drop down and choose 'Optus Wireless Connect' and was redirected an Optus page.

On the 'Optus Wireless Connect' login page I entered in the same details i'd established at the Optus Wifi spot yesterday, ie: username = my mobile number and the password i'd selected.

Unfortunately I was greeted with a login failed message.

I tried again incase I had misspelled my password but nope it returned an error again.

I took screenshots of all of it but I have been unable to upload them to date.

I just noticed on the optus login page there is a registration link, not sure if I'm supposed to re-register there or not.

The Optus pages presented this morning are quite different from the Optus Wifi hot spot pages I saw yesterday.

On my way home tonight i'll try it again.

Please do, and let us know how it goes. Cheers mate.

just call optus, they will give you your account number.

then you can sign up for live billing, paperless billing (save $1.10/month!)