Time Warner Cable strikes Wi-Fi roaming deal with Boingo

Time Warner Cable has teamed up with Boingo Wireless (WIFI) in a Wi-Fi roaming deal that will give its customers access to some of the nation’s hottest hotspots. Time Warner (TWX) Internet customers will get access to Boingo’s routers in more than 100 highly trafficked areas, including 23 of the nation’s largest airports and several New York subway stations. Boingo customers get access to an additional 35,000 Time Warner hotspots nationwide, which should add significant value to the Boingo offering.
This is Boingo’s first roaming agreement with a cable company. Time Warner operates the nation’s largest Passpoint-enabled network of Wi-Fi access points. Passpoint is the Wi-Fi Alliance’s certification for equipment that supports HotSpot 2.0, which allows registered mobile device users to connect to Wi-Fi networks without entering a password. Later this year, Time Warner and Boingo will complete a Passpoint-enabled integration so that customers can move seamlessly from one network to the other.
Roughly 45% of mobile data traffic was offloaded to Wi-Fi or small cells last year, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index. Many wireless carriers have been less aggressive than cable companies when it comes to Wi-Fi deployments, although AT&T does claim to have the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network.
Wi-Fi is clearly a battleground for wireless carriers and cable operators. Some cellular voice traffic is even migrating to Wi-Fi, as evidenced by Apple’s announcement that iOS 8 will support Wi-Fi calling. T-Mobile US and Sprint both support Wi-Fi voice calls already on several Android devices. And Comcast is reportedly looking at ways to offer voice over Wi-Fi as well.
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