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@Velocio
Hotspots are typically someone else's WiFi (usually a commercial property) being opened up for others to use.
But it is WiFi... on their coverage map they're really talking about a blend of cell tower WiFi and commercial properties opening up their broadband via WiFi.
This is going to be patchy as hell, and may not penetrate building walls to provide coverage within the building.
Note that the map they link to is not a map of signal strength and quality... it's way worse than that, this is a heat map showing density of hotspots so actual coverage is going to be significantly worse than the density.
Going in to the maximum zoom is more reflective of the situation, and again... these signals are only decent if you happen to live under a cell tower or next door to someone that has opened a WiFi hotspot via their commercial broadband. Meaning, the chances of it working as a reliable connection for almost any average property is approaching zero.
If you want this to work, it's going to have be cellular PAYG connection with the family of the person paying for it.
At this point, as the costs are too high and the cheaper tablets aren't great and you don't have WiFi... I would look to cheaper cell phones.
Probably something like this: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobile/phones/pay-as-you-go/vodafone/smart-n10
It's £74 as a device, you can add £25 of PAYG data and give the details to the families to top up, and install WhatsApp. Interestingly this device has a feature called "force ring" which they describe as "stay connected with force ring, even if the phone's on silent."... a feature for parents to ensure that they can always contact their kids, perhaps useful here.
You're going to have support issues, around the use of a smart phone, that you can't easily leave it permanently in a kiosk mode, that it will nag for a screen lock when you don't really want it to have one... but support of software is easier than support of connectivity when you cannot get to these places to reboot a WiFi router, etc.
The budget is low and you have connectivity issues... I'd downgrade your expectations to a cheap PAYG handset, install WhatsApp, pre-populate the address book with key contacts, tell the families to monitor and pay the PAYG connection.