In January, Liquid Telecom entered into a partnership with GlobalReach Technology to deliver high-performance managed Wi-Fi services across Africa. Liquid Telecom’s managed Wi-Fi services are available to businesses that want enterprise-grade Wi-Fi without the worries of procuring and managing a wireless LAN service.
Today, Liquid Telecom has launched a new Wi-Fi roaming hub that will enable mobile service operators and ISPs to access its network of public Wi-Fi hotspots across Africa.
The Wi-Fi Hub will allow Liquid Telecom’s wholesale customers to access its public Wi-Fi hotspots, enabling their subscribers to connect to hundreds of locations across five African countries including Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, leveraging the largest independent pan-African fibre network.
The company says that it is working to expand the Wi-Fi roaming hub to other markets soon.
According to Liquid Telecom, operators who will join the Wi-Fi roaming hub can also make their public Wi-Fi hotspots available to some of Liquid Telecom’s Wi-Fi roaming partners, “joining a global network of public Wi-Fi hotspots without the need for operators to negotiate their own roaming agreements.”
Liquid Telecom envisions that Wi-Fi roaming will accelerate across the region, enabling more subscribers to easily and securely connect to public Wi-Fi hotspots and avoid costly data roaming charges.
At the moment, Liquid Telecom’s roaming partners include major Tier 1 carriers, such as British Telecommunications, as well as global Wi-Fi network providers, such as iPass.