In brief: Boingo expands into Mexico

Plus: Verizon wins Virginia state contract.

Boingo Wireless announced last week that it has expanded the reach of its network of Wi-Fi hot spots to Mexico. Boingo signed a deal with Telmex’s Internet subsidiary Prodigy Movil. Through the agreement, Boingo has added 250 hot spots to its roaming network in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Acapulco, Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. The hot spots are deployed in 20 airports, hotels, malls and restaurants.

Boingo’s roaming network now includes 9,000 hot spots around the world including 6,300 in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Service providers EarthLink, Fiberlink, Infonet and MCI offer Boingo’s Wi-Fi roaming services.

The Virginia Information Technologies Agency has awarded Verizon with a six-year, $135 million telecom services contract. The commonwealth expects to save more than $33 million over the term of the contract. The contract provides for local voice and data services, and customer service enhancements.

The contract contains provisions that could let the commonwealth migrate to next-generation voice services like IP telephony. The contract services are available for use by state agencies, localities, higher education, K-12 education and other government organizations.

Virginia has a similar contract with MCI for long-distance voice, data and Internet services.