SHOPPERS are to continue enjoying free high-speed wireless access to the internet after Pennine Telecom agreed a new deal with the Mill Gate shopping centre.

The Bury company has signed a new 18-month sponsorship agreement which will see it providing a broadband connection, wireless transmission equipment and network maintenance to the centre.

And the extension to the Salford Street firm’s previous three-year deal with the centre will ensure delivery of a free public wi-fi service — without any advertising or the need to log-in — around the Mill Gate’s centrepiece Schorndorf Square.

The service will be available to the 250,000 shoppers who visit the centre every week to take advantage of its 140 retail outlets, which include nine cafes and restaurants.

Welcoming the new agreement, Peter Barber, Mill Gate centre manager, said: “Internet access on the go is becoming increasingly integral to the shopping experience. Shoppers expect to be able to check their Facebook while enjoying a coffee in a local cafe, use the handy apps which many retailers now offer or simply to browse the local availability and prices of items they want to buy.

“I’m delighted that through this new arrangement with Pennine we can offer a truly valued facility to the hundreds of thousands of people who every week choose Mill Gate as a shopping destination.”

Explaining his company’s provision of the sponsored service, Andrew Roberts, Pennine Telecom’s managing director, said: “By offering this to Mill Gate visitors, we are once again advertising our extensive expertise in the field of wireless communications.

“In a way, it’s our own shop window, a platform which, together with other landmark projects in Bury, we can use to promote our specialist skills to businesses locally and nationally.

“It’s great too that we are providing something from which so many of our fellow Bury folk can benefit.”

He added that the company was already bringing specifiers from both private and public sector organisations to Bury to demonstrate the success of its wireless projects in the town. These include the pioneering home broadband network it designed and implemented for Broad Oak Sports College and a free public wi-fi network which serves the community in and around The Trees estate.