iPass announced it has exceeded its goal of having 10,000 active hot spots in its Global Broadband Roaming network by the end of the second quarter of 2004, counting at the end of June more than 11,179 hot spots in 33 countries.
“This is a significant milestone in the Wi-Fi industry,” said John Yunker of Byte Level Research. “Connecting so many diverse Wi-Fi networks around the globe is no small feat, and iPass has made it look easy. As more and more business travelers embrace Wi-Fi, they will seek out those networks with the widest coverage; iPass is clearly a leader in this regard.”
iPass said it differentiates itself from other Wi-Fi providers by counting only the number of venues with active hot spots accessible by iPass customers. The company points out that some companies also count hot spots that are under contract or “expected” or count numerous access points within a single venue.
The iPass network includes hot spots in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceana and Africa and includes more than 2,900 hotels in 26 countries, 37 convention centers in 13 countries, and 89 airports in 19 countries.
“It doesn’t matter if we have 100,000 hot spots if they’re not in places where our customers need them,” said Anurag Lal, vice president of business development at iPass. “iPass remains focused on adding venues where enterprise business travelers and mobile employees can use our service to be productive when they’re away from the office. iPass is helping evolve the concept of what is a ‘business-oriented’ venue. Now any convenient location that offers Wi-Fi can be business-oriented.”
In other news, iPass Japan said it has expanded its roaming agreement with Yahoo! BB Mobile by adding a reciprocal roaming agreement for both iPass and Yahoo! BB Mobile users. Yahoo! BB Mobile is a wireless local area network service offered by Softbank BB and Yahoo! Japan. The schedule calls for iPass users to have access to Yahoo! BB Mobile access points beginning in July. Under the expansion, more than 600 Japanese Wi-Fi hotspots owned by Softbank BB will be available to iPass customers.
Wi-Fi roaming seems to be the phrase of the day with International Carrier Sales and Solutions, T-Systems’ carrier’s carrier division, announcing contracts or negotiations with more than 120 worldwide Wi-Fi partners, which it expects will yield a roaming network of 10,000 hot spots.
