Quiconnect to offer Access to Wi-Fi Hotspots Operated by ADP T?l?com
? 'Branded' Wi-Fi access provided to corporate customers at 'high quality' ADP T?l?com hotspots in France including airports, convention and exhibition centres and leading hotel chains.
? All ADP T?l?com hotspots 'live' today.
? Leveraging its existing relationship with Quiconnect, Sprint is the 1st service provider to capitalise on the new ADP T?l?com-Quiconnect relationship.
-/September 15, 2005 - Wi-Fi Technology News/- Quiconnect announces that it has signed a contract to offer global service providers access to WLAN hotspots operated by ADP T?l?com. This is a significant win for the company as ADP T?l?com runs some of the most prestigious and popular WLAN hotspots in France.
These include airports such as Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Toulon, Lille, Montpellier, 36 business hotels in the Alliance Hospitality Group[1], Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, the largest exhibition centre in France[2], the Concorde La Fayette hotel, and The Palais de Congr?s, a leading convention centre in Paris.
Quiconnect assists telecom operators to better serve their customers by offering branded wireless voice and data services to create virtual networks, along with all associated technical and financial interconnectivity. This approach has clear advantages not only for service providers themselves who benefit from dynamic wholesale pricing, easy network monitoring and presence management capability - a key requirement to facilitate public access voice over IP and voice over Wi-Fi - but corporate end-users who have simplified WLAN log in through 'virtual' landing pages branded to their familiar telco.
Troy Simoni, Quiconnect's chief executive officer, says, "Our focus is all about providing service providers quality footprint to extend their networks virtually. Their corporate customers want easy Wi-Fi access as they travel internationally and the deal negotiated with ADP T?l?com reflects this. Both the commercial aspects and technical interoperability between their systems and ours were done swiftly - a clear sign that ADP T?l?com sees the huge potential of our business model."
Beno?t Vedel, ADP T?l?com's strategy director explains, "We are a specialist in telecommunications networks and services at airports and other sites in France with high volumes of business traffic. Clearly Quiconnect is innovating in the whole area of service provider interconnectivity and this agreement will enable us to attract a far broader international customer base for our Wi-Fi hotspot infrastructure."
ADP T?l?com has over 40 years experience in providing telecom services at airports in the Paris region and is both an operator and integrator serving, amongst others, the requirement of 1,350 businesses operating at Roissy Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports. The company currently provides Wi-Fi access to some 80 million customers who pass through the French airports and the other business locations under its management.
Serving 96% of the Fortune 500 companies, Sprint has been developing its Wi-Fi presence extensively in the USA over the past several years. In April 2005, Sprint announced that it was working with Quiconnect to extend its WLAN coverage outside America.
Mark Brigman, Sprint's WLAN business development manager, explains, "The majority of our business users are travelling with Wi-Fi technology and to simplify log in we launched our Extended Workplace(tm) software for clients' laptops. This identifies and displays a menu of connectivity choices and gives users the option to point, click and get connected regardless of the access type[3]. Extended Workplace ensures that customers benefit from a secure, simple and consistent Sprint-branded user experience wherever they are around the world."
Sprint is the first service provider customer of Quiconnect to leverage the ADP T?l?com partnership. Brigman says, "We are aggressively adding international footprint to support Extended Workplace and the Quiconnect deal with ADP T?l?com totally reinforces why we chose them - they have the connections and skills to sign up 'local' network operators quickly on our behalf thereby adding huge value to, not only our business, but the customers we serve."
Simoni concludes, "All the ADP T?l?com hotspots are live today and we will be working to connect other service provider customers to the ADP T?l?com infrastructures over time."
[1] Mainly under the Holiday Inn brand.
[2] Paris Expo is the fourth largest exhibition centre in Europe staging 200 exhibitions each year which attract some 6 million visitors. Paris Expo has 220,000 m2 covered by Wi-Fi and 180 access points installed.
[3] Sprint Extended Workplace supports Wi-Fi, 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, dial, DSL, cable, ISDN and others.
About Quiconnect
Quiconnect enables virtual networks for voice over Internet (VoIP) and data, providing technical and financial interconnectivity and clearinghouse services worldwide. It offers access to wireless local network (WLAN) operators' footprints through a single, cost efficient and easy-to-manage service. Headquartered in London UK, Quiconnect was founded in 2001 and operates offices in Grenoble, France and San Diego USA. For more information, visit http://www.quiconnect.com
About ADP Telecom
ADP T?l?com is a telecom operator providing telecommunications services and networks to airports and locations with high business traffic. Part of the A?roports de Paris Group, ADP T?l?com develops innovative solutions which meet the needs of businesses offering a range of services covering telephone, data transmission, mobility, multi media and engineering. ADP T?l?com also provides the travelling public with Wi-Fi services and flight information via SMS. For more information, please visit the web http://www.adp-telecom.com
About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business and government customers. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two robust wireless networks offering industry leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and an award-winning and global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit http://www.sprint.com
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