LONDON-Wi-Fi roaming is garnering more attention as more companies announced settlement solutions in the space and a new report points to the importance of hot-spot roaming.
Interoute said it launched a European roaming exchange service for 802.11 wireless and mobile service providers. The Interoute roaming exchange allows providers to increase the number of wireless locations that subscribers can use to gain access to their networks. Interoute’s offering includes embedded authentication, billing and settlement facilities.
Interoute also provides managed services to hot-spot providers, including digital subscriber line and Internet access, managed customer premises equipment and managed back-office services.
In related news, Nomadix Inc. and ipUnplugged AB announced they launched complete interoperability between their solutions for carriers to enable secure seamless roaming across Wi-Fi, GPRS, UMTS or CDMA networks while maintaining a single billing solution.
In addition, a report from U.K. consultancy BWCS and Swedish venture-capital group BrainHeart Capital said commercial roaming pacts are vital to the future of the fragmented hot-spot market. The report found that only 12 of the 26 largest hot-spot operators worldwide have any roaming agreements in place and of those that do, none can be classified as true commercial roaming.
“Among the [wireless Internet service providers] that operate roaming agreements, many are simply bilateral free agreements that involve no clearing or settlement of service fees,” said Peter Kingsland, BWCS consultant. “Without a full multilateral roaming platform in place, WISPs risk losing up to 30 percent of potential hot-spot revenues.”
