* Wireless aggregator update
One-stop-shop network service aggregators continue to add wireless access services to their service packages, making stronger progress with Wi-Fi than with cellular data.
Most recently, GoRemote added a policy-management outsourcing option to its Wi-Fi and other access services, for example. It also launched a directory of free hot spots and a user rating service of those hot spots. And it added about 2,900 paid U.S. Wi-Fi hot spots to its global wireless LAN access footprint through an alliance with SBC Communications.
The company says it now offers paid Wi-Fi access as a connectivity option in 15,000 locations worldwide.
GoRemote and competitors Fiberlink Communications and iPass began life back in the early days of the Internet. Enterprises with traveling employees didn’t want to strike global deals with multiple ISPs for remote access and sort out the resulting hodge-podge of billing. Thus, the three companies became dial-up Internet service and billing/settlement aggregators. They eventually added various additional connectivity options, endpoint security and policy enforcement services. Most recently, they have begun integrating wireless access options into the mix.
Fiberlink at last count aggregates Wi-Fi services from 85 different providers and offers Wi-Fi access services in 15,500 locations worldwide. For its part, iPass says it covers 53 countries with Wi-Fi, partnering with 300 providers, with service on 19,000 access points.
On the cellular data side of things, GoRemote also last week announced a deal with Hong Kong mobile operator CSL, which provides network coverage in Hong Kong itself and in 230 countries via roaming agreements using Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technologies. Abdel Missa, director of market research and strategic planning at GoRemote, says U.S. cellular service announcements should be coming within three months and other global coverage announcements should arrive within six.
Fiberlink last fall began offering CDMA-based 1xRTT services as a cellular data option on the Verizon Wireless network footprint. Fiberlink offers an identical 1xRTT service in China.
iPass is not yet a GPRS or 1XRTT aggregator, says Chris Churilo, director of product marketing. She says the company’s cellular data access timetable “will be based on customer demand.”
