CIN, Colt Technology Services and GlobalReach Technology participated
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) completed a public Wi-Fi OpenRoaming proof-of-concept (PoC) in Shoreditch in east London.
The tech was first piloted in June 2021 and allows users to connect to Wi-Fi securely and automatically without signing in and move seamlessly between Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.
The WBA had three partners in the Shoreditch trial: CIN which provides streetside telecoms infrastructure assets; Colt Technology Services, the B2B digital infrastructure company; and GlobalReach Technology, which offers wireless ISP services and solutions.
Tech spec
WBA OpenRoaming is an open connectivity framework designed to automatically and securely connect billions of users and things to millions of Wi-Fi networks globally through its roaming federation service.
Users select a profile of their choice on their device. Mobile carriers can opt to offload their traffic to Wi-Fi ensuring their users always have the best connection.
The PoC was based on CIN’s Street Arc; streetside infrastructure that supports mobile and Wi-Fi networks, the edge and IoT networks.
Street Arc was originally developed to help operators densify cellular coverage but has been updated to integrate OpenRoaming capabilities. The claim is it provides seamless, secure offloading of cellular traffic to Wi-Fi in high traffic areas if the signal is poor or networks are congested due to local events, for instance.
Contributors
The Street Arc installations used Cisco’s Meraki MR36 access point and GlobalReach’s GlobalRo.am app to enable users to connect to the Wi-Fi network via the OpenRoaming standard. The fibre and network connectivity were provided by Colt.
Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, noted that, “Cities and municipalities seek to provide automatic, quality, and secure Wi-Fi connectivity, this is exactly what OpenRoaming delivers.
“This is the kind of initiative our organisation endorses; it supports our mission to enable collaboration between service providers, technology companies, cities, regulators and organisations.
“We look forward to the widespread deployment of these services after the successful conclusion of this live proof of concept.”