News Release

Orange Romania to Provide Seamless Public Wi-Fi with Cisco Hotspot 2.0

Supporting seamless authentication with cellular-like roaming and the capacity of Wi-Fi
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Jul 31, 2014

Cisco today announced that it is enabling Orange Romania, the country's largest mobile network operator, to provide a seamless mobile experience across cellular and Wi-Fi networks with Hotspot 2.0.

The new service enables Orange Romania users to move between cellular and Wi-Fi networks with seamless authentication, combining a cellular-like roaming experience with the capacity of Wi-Fi, particularly when in public buildings, venues and for enterprises.

Combining the power of Wi-Fi and cellular into one simple service benefits both consumers and business users, making mobile experiences even more universal.  Consumers enjoy better mobile and application experiences, whilst business users are able to work more flexibly - enabling increased productivity.

Vlad Constantinescu, Engineering Manager, Orange Romania, commented "We wanted to deploy an architecture that enables easy connectivity and automatic authentication for all of our customers. It allows them access to the same services using the Wi-Fi network as if they were using our mobile network in a secure and easy way. Cisco's solution provides the access layer, enables Hotspot 2.0 technology in our Wi-Fi network and makes it very easy to use."

Jim Scott, Managing Director, Service Provider Mobility, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia, Cisco, added, "Our vision for mobility is one in which connectivity is ubiquitous and intelligent – providing value-added experiences. This initiative by Orange Romania and the efforts of the industry to enable Hotspot 2.0 will be instrumental in providing the seamless experiences required by businesses and desired by consumers. We're delighted to be working with Orange Romania on this project."

Key highlights:

  • Cisco Hotspot 2.0 enables Orange Romania to off-load data traffic from 3G and 4G networks in selected high traffic areas with Service Provider Wi-Fi, increasing bandwidth and improving customer experience at a fraction of the cellular infrastructure cost.
  • The Cisco® Carrier-Grade Service Provider Wi-Fi infrastructure, deployed by Orange Romania, provides the access layer for the seamless authentication architecture as part of the Hotspot 2.0 initiative, including Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint protocols: IEEE 802.11u, WPA 2 Enterprise and EAP-SIM authentication.
  • The Hotspot 2.0 standard is the product of open collaboration between mobile operators, network equipment vendors and handset manufacturers. In essence, it provides the same seamless, highly secure authentication on Wi-Fi that users are familiar with for cellular roaming. Hotspot 2.0 has been certified through the Wi-Fi Alliance certification process and has been designated as a Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint.
  • Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi has been deployed by more than 200 service providers, with a combined 18 million carrier-grade access points operated by service providers, enterprises, stadiums, public sector entities and commercial organizations around the world.

 

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About Orange Romania

Orange is the market leader in Romania with 10.394 million clients and revenues of  € 230 million at 31st of March 2014. Orange Romania is part of Orange group, one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with over 239 million customers on five continents.

Orange Romania offers its clients, both individuals and companies, a complete range of communication solutions, from basic services up to integrated solutions for mobile and fixed voice and data and also TV services.

For more information on the company's products and services, please visit www.orange.ro