Austrian metronet Expands WLAN
Roaming to 1,200 Wi-Fi Hotspots in 12 Countries
In addition to 300 hotspots in Austria, 1,200 hotspots operated by Telia,
Sonera, megabeam,
Kubiwireless and VEX become available Roaming via 2,000 hotspots planned by the end of the year
metronet, the Austrian WLAN pioneer and largest hotspot operator in Austria,
now offers its customers wireless broadband Internet access via 1,200
hotspots in 12 countries. In Austria, metronet already operates 300
hotspots. After the successful implementation of roaming services in
cooperation with TeliaHomerun (Sweden and seven other countries) in July,
metronet now enters four new bilateral roaming agreements with SoneraHomerun
(Finland), megabeam (Italy), Kubiwirless (Spain) and VEX (Argentina). From
now on, metronet customers can access the complete range of hotspots with
their usual user ID. Billing of the Megabytes used abroad is done through
the monthly metronet bill. All hotspots of the roaming partners can be found
on the metronet website. By the end of this year, some 2,000 hotspots are
planned to be set up abroad through further roaming agreements. Its
cooperation with five international roaming partners has made metronet the
worldwide leading player in WLAN roaming.
"With the quick conclusion of bilateral international roaming agreements, we
satisfy the legitimate demand of our customers for simple and cost-effective
use of the international WLAN standard 802.11b also outside Austria", says
Mike McGinn, CEO of metronet, commenting on the agreements realised in
record time.
Unlike indirect agreements via 'Hotspot Brokers,' direct
agreements with other WLAN providers make the utilization of hotspots easier
and cheaper. The login at hotspots of roaming partners is simply done by
entering the usual metronet user ID adding the extension @metronet.at (e.g.
userid@metronet.at). The Megabytes consumed abroad are itemized on the
monthly metronet bill, and customers can monitor their consumption with the
real-time online reporting tool on the metronet website (under 'My
Account').
The service provided by metronet outside Austria is only available to
customers with a contract. The charge for data transfer abroad is 70 Cents
per Megabyte for metronet.business, metronet.student and metronet.home, and
1 Euro for metronet.surfer. (1 MB equals the transmission of about 500
e-mails or 20 minutes of Internet surfing.)
Secure WLAN with metronet¹s VPN server also outside Austria
As the worldwide first Wireless Internet Service Provider, metronet offers
its customers a unique possibility to securely connect via a radio interface
also outside Austria: A dedicated VPN Server based on the PPTP protocol is
available under vpn.metronet.at. The server guarantees that data are
protected while being sent via e-mail or during Internet browsing over the
WLAN radio transmission path. No additional software needs to be installed
by the users. The one-time setup of the metronet VPN server provides
permanent protection of all hotspots of metronet and its roaming partners.
Simple, fast & secure
For wireless Internet access at hotspots, users only need a notebook or PDA
equipped with a WLAN card or pre-installed WLAN chip. The use of metronet
services does not require any special configuration of notebooks or PDAs.
When opening the browser, the metronet login page appears automatically on
the screen, where the user enters his/her password and user name or uses a
pre-configured VPN connection. The WLAN technology used by metronet for data
transmission at broadband speed provides comfortable, ultra-fast, and
low-cost e-mail communication, Internet surfing and access to data on the
corporate network secured by a VPN. Data transfer is up to 60 times faster
than via GPRS and up to 30 times faster than via UMTS. metronet's hotspot
network also supports the sending and receiving of encrypted e-mails.
Already today roaming agreements with international partners provide
wireless access outside Austria.
By Robert Hoskins
Click here for more 802.11 News