Although I've seen other posts on this subject, none of them helped me so after several phone calls to EE tech support, team leaders and their partner company that run the hotspots I thought I'd share what I've learned. The page below states that "If you're an EE pay monthly customer with a WiFi-enabled device, you can connect at 150,000 locations across the UK"
https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile/manage-use/using-phone-features/how-do-i-access-wifi-coverage-boost
HOWEVER - that does not mean you can access any EE hotspot. These public hotspots are managed by a separate company and most if not all of the hotspots that have gone up since 2022 are not covered by the coverage boost feature - you need a broadband account to use them or you buy a voucher.
If you find you have to manually connect your iPhone to the hotspot and it brings up a login page - you've hit one of the 'not free' ones. If you're near a free one you wont have to connect to it at all (at least on iPhone - Android users do have a couple of extra hoops to jump through) - it happens automatically in the background. You don't even need to register to activate it any more (you used to have to text WIFI to 150 but thats no longer required) - as long as WiFi calling is enabled on your phone it will connect on its own and you likely wont even notice its done so.
Is there a list of access points that are free versus those that you have to pay for even as an EE customer ? Of course not. EE should publish that list at the very least. Even better would be if they made the 'public' access points chargeable for non-EE customers but free to use for those of us that are. In any case if you experience the frustration of entering your EE login details for the hotspot only to have it throw you straight back to the login page - now you know why !
