iPass, Inc., a company managing mobile connectivity for large enterprises and global service providers using mobility and cloud services, announced its expansion of Wi-Fi hotspot coverage in 10 Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and throughout Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. The move comes through iPass’ partnership with Spectranet, an 11-year-old Indian pioneer broadband provider.
iPass network services VP Marcio Avillez noted, “Thanks to our Spectranet partnership, iPass has extended our Wi-Fi network within strategic locations in India. Indira Gandhi International Airport is the eighth largest airport in the world with over 25 million passengers traveling each year enabling many iPass users to connect to a stable and secure network there and throughout the country.”
Spectranet owns its own fiber-optic network and the deal fits nicely with iPass needs. Spectranet marketing and product development chief Sunando Bhattachary commented, “In India, the last-mile is the biggest challenge in getting a quality connection, which is why [we] invested heavily in our own fiber-optic network.”
IPass’ Open Mobile platform is a cloud-based service delivery system. It allows companies to enable their employees to make seamless connections through laptops, smart phones, or tablets to the iPass Mobile Network, which iPass says is “the world’s largest authenticated Wi-Fi network”, at the same time enabling IT departments to have complete visibility, as well as control of network usage, security and costs wherever their employees travel.
According to its website, the 15-year-old iPass has “thousands of enterprise customers,” and also offers Wi-Fi exchange services robust enough to support both the business and mass market requirements of service providers. The basis of its system is “combining a ‘zero-click’ mobile IP data offload solution with an integrated global Wi-Fi footprint for data roaming, simplifying user connectivity when traversing 3G or 4G networks and Wi-Fi.” This, says iPass, makes Wi-Fi access as easy to use as cellular and works like 3G data roaming, providing seamless authentication to preferred networks to create an “always on”, frictionless user experience.
The benefit of this arrangement to global service providers is to increase network infrastructure in a cost-effective manner using Wi-Fi by offloading mobile IP data traffic to multiple Wi-Fi networks, thereby reducing service delivery costs without requiring additional capital investment. Another benefit to providers is that iPass enables them to increase their market size by accessing an expanding Wi-Fi enabled device market.
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