A pay-as-you-go internet service will be available to Brighton shop-pers from mid-February.

Two coin-oper-ated internet kiosks are to be installed at Churchill Square, in the top-floor food hall, by Brighton-based firm WebPoint.

The company has been steadily rolling out the kiosks across the UK for two and a half years.

WebPoint man-aging director Simon Gould said: "We now have about 100 kiosks in airports, pubs, libraries and High Street stores and more than 30,000 people logging on each month.

"It's great to be putting some in close to home at Churchill Square and Brighton is a place we know will be receptive to our service.

"The kiosks are remarkably sim-ple and people have taken to using them with enthusiasm."

The kiosks, which cost more than £4,000 each to produce, take up a square metre of floor space. They need to be placed next to a standard socket for power and a telephone line to access the inter-net using a high-speed ADSL connection.

When a coin or token is paid into the machine, the WebPoint home-page is displayed, from which users can move on to the world wide web.

A five-minute online session costs 50p and 15 minutes £1.

Last month, the company signed a three-year deal with Railtrack to place units at 15 major railway stations.

The kiosks will be available to more than 650 million passeng-ers a year at locations incl-uding Gatwick, Kings Cross and Waterloo in London, Man-chester Piccadilly and Edinburgh.

www.webpoint-kiosk.com