Optus has announced plans to roll out high-speed public wi-fi for visitors to 81 Australian shopping centres and six corporate sites, as the company plans to integrate physical and online shopping.

The $20 million, five-year deal will cover retail property group Vicinity Centres' shopping centres, which will 'enrich' consumer experiences in the centres, as well as tailed location information and personalised content. In addition, retailers will be able to implement digital advertising campaigns, use wireless terminals and use beacon technology.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Optus on our connectivity project, the first step in realising Vicinity's digital vision of creating a seamlessly integrated physical and digital retail property platform aimed at enhancing the consumer experience, through delivering a better connection with our customers and retailers, and improving operational performance," says Angus McNaughton, CEO - managing director of Vicinity Centres.

The company says the wi-fi will be simple, fast, free and available to all visitors at Vicinity-owned shipping centres. The centres include Chadstone Shopping Centre in Victoria, Emporium Melbourne, Chatswood Chase Sydney, QueensPlaza in Brisbane and Galleria in Perth.

“Optus is delighted to be partnering with Vicinity to deliver one of the biggest WiFi deployments across Australia. With the pervasive use of mobile phones across all age groups and demographics, the mobile device has become the essential digital companion for retail shoppers," says John Paitaridis at Optus Business.

Optus has also worked with Scentre Group and Mirvac to develop secured wi-fi services for their shopping centres, and Paitaridis says that the company's experience with wi-fi rollouts strengthens their ability to deliver a wide range of benefits for businesses, consumers and government clients.

“Optus provides an end to end approach in the design, build and management of WiFi services to support important clients such as Vicinity deliver a great digital experience to their customers on a national scale. Enterprise and public sector organisations are viewing Optus as the clear leader in Managed WiFi. Our approach is to ensure our customers achieve a great return on their business cases when they invest in Optus WiFi solutions,” Paitaridis concludes.