The WBA today announced that 14 new members have joined its efforts to unite the ecosystem and progress the development of Carrier Wi-Fi throughout the world. They join at a pivotal time when Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) networks are now a commercial reality and operators are reaping the benefits of an improved carrier-grade of Wi-Fi. Since January 2014, new members include:

These new members represent almost every continent in the world from Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America, spanning a diversity of sectors from large mobile operators, to device manufacturers to chipset vendors. Together the membership will engage in various WBA-led initiatives including the promotion of Global Wi-Fi Roaming, the Interoperability Compliance Program (ICP) and trials of the Next Generation Hotspot, all laying the groundwork to make Wi-Fi truly seamless, interoperable and secure.

Shrikant Shenwai, CEO of the WBA said: “The WBA brings together all parties from across the ecosystem, giving them the opportunity to work together to make Wi-Fi the best it can be. These new additions join at a critical time when the benefits of Wi-Fi have been fully recognised and solutions such as NGH, Carrier Wi-Fi and Community Wi-Fi have finally broken in to the commercial world. Our new members play a crucial role in ensuring that consumers connecting to a Wi-Fi network will be exposed to the best user experience possible, regardless of time or location. I look forward to meeting them along with other industry leaders from all parts of the ecosystem at our Wi-Fi Global Congress in San Francisco in the fall.”

Both current and new members will be attending the WBA’s fifth Wi-Fi Global Congress and 25th WBA Roundtable Conference at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco from 6th-10th October. There will be a number of presentations from WBA members and partners including AT&T, City of San Jose, Ruckus Wireless, Cisco, Devicescape, KT, Google, Broadcom, Comcast, Microsoft, BT, Boingo, Global Reach (and many more to be confirmed soon) as well as the presentation of the Wi-Fi Industry Awards on the 9th October. For more details on the event, please visit: http://www.wifiglobalcongress.com