Norway Gets Gas Station WLANs

OSLO -- Statoil Detaljhandel AS and Telenor today announced the launch of wireless Internet zones at 300 Statoil petrol stations throughout Norway. The deployment is one of Europe's largest Wi-Fi ("wireless fidelity") rollouts and Statoil is the first major gas station chain to offer its customers wireless access. The solution, based on industry-standard WLAN technology (Wireless Local Area Network), allows business and private users to access E-mail and Internet Services from Statoil Petrol Stations all over Norway.

Wireless Internet access is a rapidly growing technology and a wide range of consumer electronics has started to ship with wireless networking built in. Aimed at both business and private users, the Telenor and Statoil alliance enters a market where 90% of the laptop PCs is expected to be Wi-Fi enabled by 2005 (Gartner Group).

The new service, called Wireless Zone is designed to release a substantial productivity gain for customers by allowing users to maintain a high-speed wireless data connection on laptop PCs and PDA's while visiting a Statoil Petrol Station.

"Statoil's goal is to be the preferred stopover while on the road. The new service gives our customers to both fill up their cars and their PC's when visiting one of our stations. This is a solution for the future and solid proof of Statoil's innovations. We are continuously seeking new services that makes life easier for our customers," says Knut Hansen, Head of Information, Statoil Norway.

"We strongly believe that corporations will view wireless networks as a natural prerequisite for doing business. Telenor's innovative new WLAN-service service will provide companies with high-speed wireless freedom, combined with a secure VPN client, extending their ability to cooperate and exchange current information, anytime, anywhere," says Anders Hauglie-Hanssen, executive vice president business communications at Telenor.

As part of Telenor's strategy of taking a more holistic view to the Norwegian home market customer base, it is possible to roam between existing Telenor Wi-Fi spots and the new Statoil installations. That means that existing Telenor mobile and ADSL customers can utilise the new Statoil's service and Statoil customers can use Telenor's existing installations, thus broadening the user-friendliness even further.

Telenor ASA