The WBA today announced significant advances in Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) deployments including 12 live commercial NGH deployments from WBA member operators from the US (Boingo, Towerstream, Time Warner Cable), Asia (KT, NTT DOCOMO, SKT, Telkom Indonesia), Europe (Orange), South America (Linktel) and the Middle East (Mobily), supported by infrastructure vendor members such as Aruba Networks, Cisco and Ruckus Wireless. These developments, and the others in the pipeline, show that the adoption and deployment of NGH and Passpoint network equipment and devices is becoming increasingly mainstream with more operators looking set to follow suit in the coming years.
In addition, more than 20 carriers will participate in the live NGH experience during the Wi-Fi Global Congress taking place in San Francisco next month. Participants currently confirmed include; AT&T, Boingo, BT, China Mobile, CableLabs, Fon, KT, Linktel Corp, Meteor Networks, Mobily, BIGLOBE, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, PCCW, Portugal Telecom, SKT, Shaw Communications, Telkom Indonesia, Towerstream, and TRUE Thailand.
“Carrier Wi-Fi is coming of age with an ever growing number of NGH deployments, both coast-to-coast in the US and around the world. In San Francisco, we are excited to be in the position to provide an environment where end users can experience the benefits of the technology first hand. Working with Ruckus Wireless, Global Reach, Towerstream, The City of San Francisco, Accuris Networks and BSG Wireless, we are able to provide a robust network and deliver a completely seamless and ubiquitous Wi-Fi experience across a number of locations and using a wide range of Passpoint enabled devices,” said Shrikant Shenwai, CEO, Wireless Broadband Alliance.
The WBA has collaborated with Ruckus Wireless and Global Reach who will host the live NGH network in the Palace Hotel, the City of San Francisco who will provide the NGH network on Market Street, and with Accuris Networks and BSG Wireless acting as the main hub providers. For the first time ever, the network will also include outdoor locations in the City of San Francisco where users can experience the benefits at popular tourist locales such as Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf using Towerstream’s NGH network. In addition, Passpoint R2 capabilities will be featured at the conference and will be demonstrated on mobile devices from Mediatek and Samsung.
‘NGH Live Experience’ will take place at 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 Francisco, 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 Wi-Fi Industry Awards ceremony on the 9th October. For more details on the event, please visit: www.wifiglobalcongress.com
