Boingo Wireless - Wi-Fi Industry Basics

Boingo operates one of the largest hotspot roaming networks. This includes over 12,000 high-traffic public locations such as airports, hotels and cafes operated by dozens of hotspot operators (HSOs). Boingo’s coverage grew 100% in 2002, a trend that will continue as more and more hotspots are deployed. Boingo’s primary strategic focus is on continuing to grow its roaming network.
One of the benefits of working with Boingo is that HSOs are not required to use any kind of specialized equipment in their hotspots or their back office to become part of the Boingo roaming system. Nevertheless, Boingo is working with leading equipment vendors to make integration with existing off-the-shelf devices even easier.

Hot Spot in a Box^®
Boingo’s Hot Spot in a Box^® allows any Wi-Fi access point to power a commercial hotspot. A Hot Spot in a Box^®-enabled AP is preconfigured to communicate with Boingo’s back-end systems for user sign-up, authentication, billing and settlement.

Boingo has partnered with leading Wi-Fi equipment OEMs who are building Hot Spot in a Box^® into their products. Hot Spot in a Box^® 1.0, a $540 access point from Colubris, is available now. Hot Spot in a Box^® 2.0-based products from other major OEMs will be announced soon. These products will be under $300.

Hot Spot in a Box^® further reduces the barrier to entry to becoming a Wi-Fi hotspot operator.
In the future, every DSL line, cable line, T1, etc., is likely to have a Wi-Fi hub on the end of it. With Hot Spot in a Box^® , every one of these broadband endpoints would have the ability to be a commercial hotspot. One doesn’t need to operate a café, retail store or hotel to consider the potential of this. If you live in an apartment over a busy street corner in Manhattan, and you already have a DSL or cable broadband connection, you could opt to become a wireless Internet provider just by flipping a switch on your Hot Spot in a Box^®-enabled home Wi-Fi access point. You get a check at the end of the month for all the users who connected to your network

There are commercial and regulatory issues to be worked out in sharing or reselling a residential broadband connection. However, this sort of advance would do nothing but increase the size of the pie for all players.

Boingo Ready^® equipment
In addition to Hot Spot in a Box^®, which is targeted to low-cost devices, Boingo certifies higher-end access control devices designed for large hotspot installations such as hotels and airports. The “Boingo Ready^®” program verifies that hardware will plug seamlessly into Boingo’s back end systems for sign-up, authentication, network management and support.

Several vendors are now shipping Boingo Ready^® products, including Nomadix, Colubris and Vernier.
Equipment doesn’t need to be Boingo Ready^® to be integrated with Boingo’s systems, but it makes the process easier.