The Telstra Air project will offer more than 4,000 hot spots nationally and access to 15 million hot spots overseas.

As part of the Ballarat launch, six hot spots were switched on at payphone sites in popular locations across the city.

In addition to new hot spots, thousands of Ballarat households connected with Telstra will be able to turn their own home broadband connections into hot spots to create a vast Wi-Fi network across the region. 

The network works by Telstra Air members sharing a small portion of their home internet bandwidth in exchange for using their own home data allowance at hot spots across the nation and even overseas. 

Telstra country wide area general manager of south west Victoria Bill Mundy said the dual nature of each broadcast signal – one for each household and one for the public – ensured the project prevents users from getting stung extra data charges, keeps private information safe and does not affect connection speed.

“With the ability of Telstra customers to share their broadband connection, there is an opportunity for Ballarat to become very quickly covered in wireless network,” Mr Mundy said.

“We will only allow you to be a Telstra Air member when there’s adequate capacity to support both users.

“Ballarat Central, Sebastopol and Wendouree now got deployed wireless hot spots.”

A Telstra Air app is used to find the hot spots.

There are 11 hot spots listed in Ballarat, with locations at Doveton Street, Geelong Road, Grant Street, Bridge Mall, Peel Street and Albert Street already activated, with further Drummond, Doveton, Sturt, Albert and Howitt street locations also named.

Mr Mundy expects the reach of the network to grow rapidly over the next five years and said the project could aid Ballarat’s tourism industry.

Non-Telstra customers can also access the Wi-Fi hot spots for a fee. 

Eligible Telstra home broadband customers with a compatible gateway can join Telstra Air by visiting the telstra.com/air website.