Boingo Wireless - Wi-Fi Industry Basics

Boingo^® helps major brand service providers get into Wi-Fi with very little up front investment.
Depending on the partner’s needs, the Boingo Platform Services turnkey solution includes a single aggregated roaming network, private-labeled client software, support and even billing. Partners can take advantage of one or all of these components. Boingo handles network integration, management, authentication and settlement with each individual HSO. Boingo can have its partners in market in under 90 days. And because the software and service are completely private-labeled for the partner under their brand, they retain ownership and control of their customers.

Carrier-branded client software
As noted earlier, Boingo provides carriers and ISPs with private-labeled client software for Windows (98, ME, 2000 and XP) and PocketPC devices. A Macintosh version will be released in 2004. The software is the most powerful interface available for connecting to private and public Wi-Fi networks, including a dynamic sniffer, built-in location database that is regularly updated as hotspots are added, profile manager for connecting to secure Wi-Fi networks at home and at the office, built-in VPN, and many other features.

The Boingo software platform is completely standards-based, which means that carriers and hotspot operators don’t need to deploy any specialized equipment, either at hotspots or in the back-office.
Without Boingo’s client software, access in hotspots is hit-and-miss for users and their carrier providers. Users must learn how to recognize different “SSIDs” (codes that uniquely identify different Wi-Fi networks), must be able to program their cards to connect to different networks, and are forced to wade through confusing login “splash screens”, which are different from location to location, to find the carrier that they are subscribed to.

There are several problems with this approach:
1. Users must configure their own equipment differently in each hotspot
2. No ability to put a consistent brand on the user experience
3. User is bombarded with competing brands and offers – SSIDs, splash pages
4. Carrier can’t integrate GPRS or other WWAN services
5. Can’t integrate value-added services – VPN, etc.
6. High support costs

In contrast, Boingo’s private-label software puts the carrier’s brand in front of the end user whenever they connect to Wi-Fi networks, wherever they are. It gives the carrier tremendous control over the user’s experience through a patent-pending business logic engine that dynamically sorts and brands Wi-Fi signals before they are presented to the user.

Instead of “Joe’s Cafe”, a signal is presented to the user with the carrier’s brand. Instead of having to wade through confusing and competition-laced splash pages, users merely type in their username and password or provide a SIM card to authenticate. Once authenticated, the client can launch a personal or corporate VPN or a pop up with a special offer.

Boingo’s integration of WWAN technologies such as GPRS, CDMA 1XRTT and iDEN, allows a carrier to provide its customers Wi-Fi hotspots and wide area data networks all in one convenient service under one carrier-branded software interface. For GSM based carriers, Boingo supports SIM authentication, smoothing integration with existing infrastructure.

Major carriers and ISPs such as T-Mobile and EarthLink have chosen Boingo’s software technology as the way to unify their customers’ wireless experience.

When paired with Boingo’s aggregated roaming network, the software provides a single seamless experience across a vast number of hotspot locations, all under one account for the user.

Leading hotspot roaming network
Wi-Fi hotspots are short in range – only 100-500 feet – and tremendously fragmented. As the cost of deployment continues to drop and new entrants flood the market, this fragmentation will continue to increase. (In several years when the hotspot market is more mature, Boingo believes that no single hotspot operator will own more than 10% of all hotspot locations.)

Prior to Boingo, this meant a fragmented and confusing experience for the end user, who was forced sign up with many different hotspot operators they might encounter in their travels.

For the carrier or ISP looking to offer a compelling Wi-Fi experience to its customers, two options are available: one, try to strike roaming deals with a multitude of different hotspot operators and build systems to integrate and monitor them as a single network; two, work with a roaming aggregator like Boingo, which has already assembled most hotspot operators into a single system and provides the client software necessary to uniformly brand the user experience.

Boingo has roaming agreements with dozens of hotspot operators, representing over 12,000 public hotspots. Boingo is actively cultivating a pipeline of thousands of additional locations. Boingo uses industry-standard technology that frees the hotspot operator from using any proprietary equipment either at their hotspots or in their back office, further ensuring Boingo’s continued leadership in roaming network aggregation.

Boingo provides its carrier and ISP partners a single, turnkey aggregated roaming network that is uniformly branded. Wi-Fi signals in each aggregated hotspot are displayed in the client software using the carrier’s or ISP’s brand. For example, when the user opens their laptop or PDA in a Wayport hotel or a NetNearU café (two Boingo hotspot operator partners), the user will be presented with a live signal branded, “[Carrier Brand] Wi-Fi”. When the user selects the signal, the software prompts them to authenticate through a username and password or a SIM card, which is passed through Boingo’s back-end systems to the carrier’s authentication systems, and then the user is connected to the network. At no time is the user aware of who the underlying hotspot operator is or what other carriers might also have roaming relationships with that location. No other solution provides this seamless, uniform and simple branded experience for customers.

Boingo has service level agreements (SLAs) with all of its commercial hotspot operator partners and its NOC actively monitors each of their hotspots at a granular level 24x7 to ensure a high level of reliability. Boingo aggressively enforces quality and quickly drops HSOs who don’t live up to their SLAs.

Carriers and ISP partners have the option of building their own hotspots or cutting direct deals with larger hotspot operators, while still using Boingo’s aggregation, network monitoring and clearing house functionality to tie their networks together with dozens of other hotspot operators.
Through Boingo’s software and network aggregation services, carriers and ISPs get a large, turnkey network, one NOC and one stream of reporting data. They can offer their customers a truly compelling Wi-Fi experience without committing a significant amount of capital.

Support
Boingo’s management team consists of customer-focused carrier and ISP veterans. The company operates a call center dedicated to helping end users quickly resolve driver issues, software conflicts, hardware problems and other technical issues that crop up when using Wi-Fi.
As an optional component of Boingo Platform Services, Boingo can provide private-label support services direct to end users, or higher-tier support to a carrier or ISP partner’s own support personnel.

Billing
Boingo provides a single aggregated accounting stream to carrier and ISP partners in a wide variety of industry-standard formats.

Optionally, Boingo’s state-of-the-art billing system can be used to bill end user customers directly, on a private-label basis. This service is made available to carriers or ISPs who are interested in getting an offering to market faster than they can prepare their own billing systems.

Summary
Through its Boingo Platform Services, Boingo helps major brand communications providers compete effectively and efficiently in the exploding Wi-Fi market. This is why more carriers, ISPs and OEMs have selected Boingo than any other roaming provider.