Pass-One's
Unified Service Level Will Create
Global Broadband
Wireless Roaming Market
Boston,
MA, June 20, 2002 - Over 50 leading wireless network (WLAN) companies
convened in Boston at the Founding Meeting of Pass-One, a new international
association formed by wireless Internet service providers (WISPs).The goal of the new organization is to facilitate “barrier-less
roaming” between wireless networks.To this end, the participants agreed in principle to establish a global
service as a recognizable indicator of quality wireless connectivity.More
than 20 WISPs (including many of the major North American cellular carriers) and
30 WLAN equipment vendors agreed on an action plan to deliver to the market a
globally accepted service level standard.
The
new association will focus on creating a global standard for wireless Internet
service.As a part of this effort,
Pass-One will certify WISPs as being compliant with a minimum set of service
requirements.Once certified, these
WISPs will be able to display the Pass-One service mark at all of their service
locations so that end-users will know that quality wireless connectivity is
available.The Pass-One
certification process will also ensure that member WISPs can offer barrier-less
roaming between their networks for end-users.
Fees
and dues for Members and Participants are defined by the Executive Committee and
consist of a flat annual fee. The fees for both Members and Participants are set
at USD $10,000 or EUR $10,750 and will cover the rest of the year 2002. The
application form to be filled in with a view of applying for Membership or
Participation will be available on www.pass-one.com
as of Monday June 24th, 2002.
An association with a clear mission
The
end-user will want to find all public WLAN hotspots and have the same user
experience.Pass-One's mission is
therefore to create one global
level of minimum service standards, and certify compliance of its members'
networks. Similar
to the credit card industry, Pass-One members will be able to use the Pass-One
global service mark as a recognition tool for end-users.
Helping many players form one market.
Today,
the WISP market is highly fragmented, and its players range from small coffee
shop chains or a single airport to larger organisations like Tele2 (Sweden) or
Wayport (USA).
Pass-One’
s action plan is to organise this market by providing also smaller and medium
WISPs with a viable business environment.Pass-One
is a non-profit association, and its members are primarily WISPs, traditional
ISPs, cellular carriers and fixed line telco’s whose offerings also contain
public WLAN services.
A focused action plan with dedicated resources
The
current Executive Committee, consisting of representatives from FatPort
(Canada), Open Point Networks (USA), Wificom (France), and Tele2 (Sweden), and
its Chairman, Phil Belanger from Wayport (USA) have together with a number of
participating industry experts laid out a challenging roadmap with clear
milestones for the upcoming months.Working
Groups have been established and are dedicated to use the most cost-efficient
tools to deliver the service standards for the industry.Pass-One has a clear and focused action plan: deliver a
service mark to the industry before the end of 2002.
The
Founding 'Plenary' Meeting held in Boston on June 14th was attended by WISPs and
large cellular carriers convinced of the need of a central non-profit industry
association.Before the end of the
year Pass-One will provide a multilateral roaming agreement for its Members and
One single service mark will be available for all end-users worldwide.