iPass Inc.
and Swisscom Eurospot announced today an agreement to provide iPass customers with high-speed Wi-Fi Internet access at more than 1,500 hotspots in ten European countries. These hotspots include business-oriented venues such as hotels, airports, train stations and conference and convention centres. The network aggregation agreement gives iPass the ability to integrate into its virtual network the extensive pan-European Swisscom Eurospot network. Swisscom Eurospot is the leading pan-European provider of broadband Internet at business-oriented hotspots of well-known brands such as Hilton, Holiday Inn, Mövenpick and Steigenberger hotels, airports in Munich, Germany and Brussels, Belgium, and train stations such as Paddington Station in London, UK. Currently Swisscom Eurospot is offering its broadband Internet access service in Germany, the UK, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Italy.

As performed with all of its roaming partners, iPass will validate all Swisscom Eurospot hotspots against rigorous quality assessment and operations tests and enable interoperability with the leading VPNs, personal firewall and policy management systems. Upon passing this battery of tests, the Swisscom Eurospot hotspots network will be certified by iPass as “Enterprise Ready” and will then be integrated into the iPass virtual network. More than 200 Swisscom Eurospot hotspots have already been tested and integrated.

“iPass has created a business-oriented broadband footprint which leads this market,” said Anurag Lal, vice president of business development at iPass. “Our partnership with Swisscom Eurospot, Europe’s leading provider of Wireless Broadband for business travellers, can extend our Enterprise-Ready Wi-Fi network coverage into important business venues throughout Europe. Integrating Pan-European venues such as major hotel chains and strategic airports means our users stay connected when and where they need it most.”

Frédéric Gastaldo, chief executive officer at Swisscom Eurospot, added “By integrating our hotspots with the iPass Global Broadband Roaming network we now provide enhanced usability and security to iPass customers when using our service. Corporate IT departments highly value these features when supporting their mobile workforce.”

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