Telecom-grade Wi-Fi brings business

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When building its Wi-Fi network in Europe, British service provider The Cloud wanted a partner that could think outside the box, pushing the boundaries of what a hotspot is and how it works. More than just an access point, The Cloud wanted a reliable platform for flexible deployment of new services.

April 25, 2005

Ericsson had a solution that fit the bill, and did more. As a trusted partner for wireless networks, Ericsson provides a fully manageable and reliable wireless LAN solution that lets mobile operators and internet service providers offer branded wireless services. It uses DSL access as an aggregation network for Ericsson's Access Base Station, meaning it is inexpensive to deploy and requires just a phone jack to connect.

As sole provider of access points to The Cloud, Ericsson has deployed Europe's largest Wi-Fi network and the third-largest in the world. Marcus Ekbäck, Ericsson product manager, says: "The Cloud and other customers recognize our knowledge and experience in wireless services. The rollout of the second generation of our product shows we have been able to introduce telecom-grade functionality to Wi-Fi."

Thanks to a smart business model, The Cloud is one of the Wi-Fi industry’s most successful players. In addition to public wireless services, it also offers value-adding services for venue owners. This benefits both parties and shows how wireless hotspots can be true business generators.

This is the case in 10,000 British pubs where The Cloud uses the same infrastructure to provide both public hotspot services and dedicated access to gaming machines. Fully secure connectivity means the gaming machines can be easily updated with new software and monitored remotely at lower cost.

With DSL, The Cloud can flexibly address small sites' and offices' needs inexpensively. The services meet a basic small business demand: the typical hotspot environment, where internet and data connectivity is moving beyond classic X.25 or ISDN services. And public Wi-Fi access adds even more value.

The Cloud and Ericsson have recently implemented Wi-Fi connectivity at the most heavily used public places in Sweden: railway stations. More than 600,000 train passengers and railway employees walk through the hotspots daily. This new network covers the 50 largest railway stations in Sweden.

Johan Myrvoll, wireline marketing manager at Ericsson, says: "We built a telecom-grade network with carrier-class connectivity. We have one of the best access-point solutions on the market in terms of security, constant availability and manageability. There are few solutions that let you build a 10,000 access-point network. Ours can."