As part of the ongoing celebrations to honor World Wi-Fi Day 2017, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) this week announced that the extension of its City Wi-Fi Roaming project for a second year.
Facilitated by the WBA, and in conjunction with 38 world leading operators, including AT&T, BT, Orange, Telstra and Korea Telecom, the project will enable consumers and visitors to automatically, and securely, roam between public Wi-Fi networks in 17 major cities around the globe, between 20th June – 20th August.
The City Wi-Fi Roaming project was launched last year as part of World Wi-Fi Day, allowing consumers to roam between 4 cities. This year, the project has expanded significantly and is connecting hotspots from 17 major cities across the world, including: Barcelona (Spain), Birmingham (UK), Bradford (UK), Dublin (Ireland), Singapore, Kazan (Russia), Leeds (UK), Limerick (Ireland), Moscow (Russia), New York City (USA), Nizhny Novgorod (Russia), Perm (Russia), Saint-Petersburg, Samara (Russia), San Jose (USA), Sendai (Japan) and Yekaterinburg (Russia).
The WBA has defined the framework and best practices for roaming for the project through its Next Generation Hotspot (NGH), which is based on Passpoint technology and WRIX (Wireless Roaming Intermediary Exchange).
The comprehensive framework for Wi-Fi Roaming services provided by the WBA covers interconnection, data clearing, financial clearing and the exchange of Wi-Fi location information between operators. Together, these elements ensure a secure experience is delivered to end users.
Operators supporting the City Roaming initiative include 2 Degrees New Zealand, AT&T, Airtel, AIS Thailand, Bell Mobility, BT, Celcom Axiata Berhad, China Mobile, csl Hong Kong, Dialog Axiata, Etisalat Nigeria, Fon, Idea Cellular, JSC ER-Telecom Holding, Korea Telecom, M1, MegaFon RU, Mobilink, Mobily, Mobitel, MTN Nigeria, NTT DOCOMO, Omantel, Orange, Portugal Telecom, PT Telkom Indonesia, Robi Axiata, Shaw, SKT, Smartone, StarHub, Sudatel, Swisscom, TATA Teleservices, Telstra, Telus, TRUE, and Videotron.
The interconnectivity partners for the project are Accuris Networks, Syniverse, BSG Wireless, with Cisco, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, and Ruckus Wireless as the infrastructure providers. GlobalReach delivers the captive portal for the project, and is providing a Wi-Fi AAA/Hotspot 2.0 online signup (OSU) platform.
Shrikant Shenwai, CEO, WBA
The free Wi-Fi roaming service is based on the WBA’s NGH, which 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.
