City Wi-Fi Roaming initiative includes 38 operators
The Wireless Broadband Alliance is continuing its support for a global Wi-Fi roaming network of public hot spots that has significantly expanded since the WBA launched the project last year.
The City Wi-Fi Roaming project started as a celebration of World Wi-Fi Day last year and has been extended for another year, the WBA said. The network includes secure, automatic hot spot roaming across 17 major cities with participation from nearly 40 operators around the world participate in the network, including AT&T, Orange, BT, Korea Telecom, China Mobile, Bell Mobility and Telstra.
When WBA announced the network roaming project last year, it included only four cities — but now consumers can roam via Passpoint technology and Wireless Roaming Intermediary Exchange (WRIX) in 17 major cities around the world, including Barcelona, Spain; Dublin, Ireland; Birmingham and Leeds, United Kingdom; New York City, New York; San Jose, California; Saint Petersburg and Kazan in Russia; Sendai, Japan and Singapore. Customers from the 38 participating operators can roam for free onto
The free City Wi-Fi Roaming project will run through August 20th of this year; devices can be registered here. Hardware providers include Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Aruba Networks, and Ruckus Wireless, and interconnection for the initiative is being enabled by Syniverse, Accuris Networks and BSG Wireless.
Shrikant Shenwai, CEO of the WBA, said that WBA’s Next Generation Hotspot framework “not only allows consumers to seamlessly connect to Wi-Fi hotspots across major cities across the globe, but also ensures extra security and a better user experience are delivered to those that connect. … Our City Roaming project is just one initiative that is helping bring more Wi-Fi connectivity to those that need it. We are encouraging cities, governments, operators and tech giants to come together to bring affordable connectivity to everyone, everywhere.”
