Biggest Global Wi-Fi Network Created as iPass Partners with Devicescape

iPass, the world’s largest business-focused Wi-Fi network, announced a strategic partnership with Devicescape, making iPass the world’s largest Wi-Fi network, period.

As part of the deal,  iPass will integrate the Devicescape Curated Virtual Network (CVN) into its global Wi-Fi network, allowing iPass customers access to Devicescape’s amenity Wi-Fi network of over 20 million hotspots worldwide.

Complementing and expanding the iPass network, Devicescape is available in the places where people want to be connected: hotels, airports, cafes, retail outlets and many more venues where people congregate and travel.

The Curated Virtual Network is a proven carrier-grade solution, having been deployed by mobile operators, MVNOs and Wi-Fi First providers in the U.S. and Europe, iPass notes.

Those capabilities might be increasingly important to a growing number of contestants in the mobility business, boosting the value of Wi-Fi as a platform to support mobile service.

T-Mobile US and Bright House Networks in Tampa and Orlando, Fla., for example, are testing the new Passpoint standard for Wi-Fi authentication and call handoff.

The trial uses the existing Passpoint feature on T-Mobile US handsets to automatically connect to Bright House Networks Wi-Fi hotspots.

Bright House supports 34,000 public hotspots in the Tampa and Orlando areas.

In addition to providing a reliable, secure, in-pocket connection experience in Wi-Fi hotspots, Passpoint supports data offload with instant network detection, selection, and authentication.

That is important for T-Mobile US, and any mobile service provider, as it eases the chores customers have when transitioning to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

In principle, Passpoint would create new facilities support for mobile service providers. Both large mobile providers and large fixed network providers would gain.

Mobile operators would be able to create a more seamless and improved end user experience with the ability to easily offload more mobile network traffic to fixed networks.

Conversely, Passpoint will allow mobile service providers to build mobile services that rely more heavily on Wi-Fi than mobile spectrum to support the business model and operations.

That is precisely what the new iPass deal with Devicescape means.