Wireless broadband provider The Cloud is taking wi-fi access technology from Devicescape to make it easy for customers to connect to the network’s 10, 500 hotspots around the UK.

The software client Mycloud will provide seamless logon to home, office, public and free networks, the company claims.

The Cloud’s business director, Owen Geddes said the company hopes to use the software to “become an umbrella for all your Wi-Fi across Europe”. He added, “It will understand how you use Wi-Fi, where you go to use it and what you use it for, so we can offer appropriate content”.

Using Mycloud is very simple. You tell the service which service you have to access and whatever passwords and encryption keys are needed. The Devicescape technology scans for SSID’s – network identifiers – that it recognises from your list, including your service providers roaming partners.

DNS protocol is used rather than the traditional login and pulls your credentials from a central store and does the legwork by the logging on to the wireless LAN for you. This ensures that your login details are no longer stored on the mobile device and removes the need for manual logins.

Devicescape’s CEO Dave Fraser pointed out that users can choose to accept or reject connecting to open hotspots.

Mycloud will be offered to Windows XP and Vista only but Devicescape has developed its own client for Mac and some mobile phones. This is great news for phone users as phone browsers often have difficulty logging on to hotspot pages.

The technology will allow network operators to shift data traffic off their cellular networks onto Wi-Fi where possible, Geddes added. He said that The Cloud already had a deal with O2 to provide iTunes connectivity for the iPhone, for instance, and that he didn’t see this changing even with 3G and HSDPA.

“Wi-Fi is faster than 3G”, he said. “Also, 80 percent of data transactions are inside buildings, and 3G’s in-building penetration is not great.