In addition to bus fleet, Barcelona’s public Wi-Fi network includes indoor and outdoor hot spots.
Building on its existing network of indoor and outdoor public Wi-Fi hot spots, Barcelona, Spain, working with Wi-Fi service management firm Aptilo Networks, has extended Wi-Fi connectivity to a fleet of 1,003 city buses.
The addition of public Wi-Fi to the buses nearly doubles the number of access points when combined with the 1,100 hot spots already deployed around the Mediterranean destination. With the exception of places like libraries and museums where unrestricted Wi-Fi speeds are available, local competition rules limit throughput to 256 kilobits per second.
To register for the service, officially dubbed “Barcelona Wi-Fi,” users enter a captive portal, input information including email address and are verified for access to the network in a one-time transaction. Aptilo is providing its Service Management Platform, which is designed to enable policy and management in a multivendor Wi-Fi environment.
“We are constantly seeking innovative ways to utilize Barcelona Wi-Fi for smart city services. Aptilo has been a great partner in helping us take Barcelona Wi-Fi to new heights,” said Paco Rodríguez Jiménez, IT director for the Barcelona City Council.
“Barcelona City Council, one of the pioneers of city Wi-Fi, is constantly on the move with smart city initiatives to save costs and to support their 1.6 million citizens and 7.5 million tourists visiting the city every year,” added Aptilo Networks CEO Paul Mikkelsen.
In commentary provided to RCR Wireless News, Mikkelsen discussed how Hotspot 2.0 Release 2, a Wi-Fi Alliance certification targeting secure, automatic network connection, would ultimately change the way captive portals are employed to capture user information.
“2017 might just be the tipping point when there will be a critical mass of real Hotspot 2.0 Release 2 support for new devices,” Mikkelsen said. “Embracing that change will reduce the importance of the captive portal over time. Venues and enterprises have relied on user authentication as the gateway to grab user data and engage with users. With Hotspot 2.0, users will already be authenticated. CRM and campaign management systems will still need to be populated with insights – yes the customer visited this location, etc. Communication with the user will need to be based on new triggers rather than from the captive portal. Intelligent portal interaction with the end user is where we’re headed.”
