Finland Opens Up Hotspots

ESPOO, Finland -- A group of seven Finnish citywide WLANnetwork operators today announced that they will offer roaming servicesin their networks from the beginning of 2004. Roaming enables currentsubscribers to utilize their wireless Internet connection in allnetworks included in the roaming agreement. The agreement will initiallycover eight cities in Finland with a combined population of over400,000: Hamina (operated by Haminan Energia), Lahti (Suomen 4G),Mäntsälä (Mäntsälän Sähkö), Porvoo (Porvoon Energia), Rauma (RaumanEnergia), Vaasa and the Leppävaara area in Espoo (Netsafir) as well asVantaa (Vantaan Energia). The technology for the roaming service isprovided by the WiFi Hotzone technology supplier Radionet.

"Roaming in citywide WLAN networks works in the same way as in cellularnetworks. For example, a customer of Porvoo's network has the samewireless broadband internet access when visiting Vantaa," saidRadionet's director of sales and marketing Henry Valtonen. The roaming agreement initially includes seven operators, and thecoalition is looking to expand the roaming agreement to include newmembers domestically and abroad.

"We believe that roaming will be one of the key factors for the successof Wi-Fi networks. Therefore, we are inviting new members to join theroaming agreement and also welcome internet service providers as well asother broadband and mobile operators," said product manager MarkoHeinsola from Vantaan Energia.