Companies to provide wireless Internet access by turning private homes into public Wi-Fi hotspots

Alcatel-Lucent, and the Dutch cable operator Ziggo are planning to turn private homes into public Wi-Fi hotspots in order to provide wireless broadband access to Ziggo's customers. They are conducting a trial among the citizens of the city of Groningen, in the northeast of the Netherlands. The trial is using Alcatel-Lucent's lightRadio Wi-Fi technology to give multiple Ziggo subscribers simultaneous access to high-quality wireless Internet – without impairing either the existing home broadband service quality or impacting the security of existing home WiFi networks.

Now, the service is being opened up to 18,000 homes in November, making it the largest and most dense hotspot network in the Netherlands. For Ziggo's customers, a secure wireless broadband connection is vital to allow them to access Internet services on the move, whenever they want them and using the device most suited to them.

As part of the trial, Alcatel-Lucent is providing Wireless LAN gateway functionality within its 7750 Service Routers as well as authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) server authentication functionality without need to change the cable network to allow the simple single login procedure.

"We are confident that the community Wi-Fi service we have built with Alcatel-Lucent is the first great step toward extending our services to customers outside their homes in a simple, reliable and secure way. The trial has already demonstrated that even with multiple subscribers accessing the Wi-Fi connection at the same time, speeds and quality are not compromised," Heleen Elferink, Director Network & Systems Development of Ziggo said.

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