Telefonica launches global wi-fi hotspot service with single sign-on in 110 countries

Telefonica has launched a new global wi-fi product, offering users single billing and sign-on for 1.3 million wireless hotspots across the world.

The new Telefonica hotspot service is aimed at globetrotting execs, and attempts to make it simpler for business travellers to buy minutes from public wi-fi connections across the world.

The service, called Universal Wi-Fi, supports iOS and Android mobile devices as well as Windows PCs and Macs, offering access to hotspots in 110 countries across Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia.

It follows Telefonica's launch last year of its pan-European 3G plus hardware bundles in partnership with Dell. The packages give users access to Telefonica's 3G networks in 29 countries across Europe. Like Universal Wi-Fi, the NetReady services are pitched as making access, billing and expenses management simpler for businesses, but come with premium pricing.

Telefonica hasn't released any details of the cost of Universal Wi-Fi, but is promoting it as a flat rate service within its mobility portfolio, with single sign-on at various hotspots, which can be used across up to five devices.

source: www.zdnet.com

Rwanda rolls out free wireless

It's a scene any visitor would be surprised to see deep in central Africa: a tech-savvy consumer sitting in a restaurant and surfing a broadband connection with a smartphone, tablet and laptop.

But in a region long associated with war and genocide, Rwanda is busy trying to re-invent itself as a regional high tech hub by rolling out free citywide and eventually nationwide wireless connectivity.

"I came to use the internet. Sometimes I download video and books," said South Korean development worker Lee Il-mo, a resident of the Rwandan capital Kigali for the past two years.

"Before I went to restaurants or coffee bars and I had to buy a drink, but here it's a free area," he said, sitting in Kigali City Tower, a zone slated as the city's new tech hub and the one of the first steps of the so-called 'Smart Kigali' project.

Last month, the Rwandan government announced it had started to cover the lush green, rolling hills of the capital with wireless hotspots.

This was the first step of a plan to provide wifi coverage to all schools and public buildings, markets, bus stations and hotels in the city and, in the long-term, to the entire country.

Rwanda's minister in charge of Information Technology, Jean Philibert Nsengimana, said he wanted to see the plan "accelerate growth of the internet sector" and attract more investors.

"Connectivity is one of the most important draws for business in this age of digital economy," he said, asserting that free wifi was merely a step in the direction of a much bigger infrastructure goal -- that of fourth generation, or 4G, access.

In June, the Rwandan government signed South Korea's KT Corp to build a 4G network that it wants delivered to 95 per cent of the country, up from the estimated 10 per cent who currently have 3G access.

"Broadband access," said Nsengimana, "has to be considered as an essential, just like water and electricity".

For Rwanda's government, the stakes are high.

President Paul Kagame and his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which has dominated Rwanda since ousting Hutu extremists and ending the genocide nearly 20 years ago, is attempting to push through a dramatic transformation from trauma to economic success story.

The country is ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in Africa, while the World Bank's ease of doing business index for 2013 ranked Rwanda 52nd out of 185 countries, the third best in sub-Saharan Africa.

au.finanace.yahoo.com