Quiconnect

Kubi Wireless

Quiconnect provides WLAN access for leading UK telco throughout Spain working with the largest wireless internet service provider, Kubi Wireless

Spain is the number two tourist destination in the world, loved by the British who flock there each year. Official figures for 2005[1] show that over 16 million UK visitors went to Spain, some 29% of the total foreign travelers to the country.

Given Spain’s importance therefore as a place to visit, Quiconnect has established a public WLAN roaming agreement for one of the UK’s leading telcos with Kubi Wireless, Spain’s number one public wireless internet service provider. This will provide users Internet access at more than 250 hotspot locations throughout the country.

Founded in 2001 and privately owned, Kubi Wireless has rapidly built Spain’s most extensive public WLAN network aimed at business travellers, with a presence at high quality, high traffic locations. In 2005, it won an exclusive deal with AENA[2] to provide connectivity at Spain’s two main airports, Madrid/Barajas and Barcelona . Other key locations include the Fira de Barcelona exhibition centre - home to the annual 3GSM telecoms conference, and numerous hotel chains including Husa, Abba, Silken and Derby Hotels. In total, Kubi has some 157 hotel properties throughout Spain. With headquarters in Barcelona, Kubi Wireless is a neutral operator whose strategy is to work with national and international carriers to provide Wi-Fi services to their customers.

Lidia Caba, Kubi Wireless’ marketing manager, says, “Large telecommunications companies tend to sign deals through integration partners so the Quiconnect agreement has energised our access to this UK company, one of the world’s most important operators. The commercial negotiation and technical integration has been far easier and faster working with Quiconnect, and in terms of usage of our network, the telco has quickly become a top five customer.”

To enable services to be delivered, Quiconnect and Kubi Wireless started the integration process in February 2006 which resulted in RADIUS integration work being carried out between the Kubi and Quiconnect systems using IP Sec. This means not only fast authentication for the UK telco’s customers travelling to Spain and logging onto Kubi Wireless infrastructure, but consistent and simplified billing, too, as subscribers are billed directly by the British telco on their return from Spain.

The integration work completed by Quiconnect and Kubi Wireless also means that the British telco’s customers can use its hotspot connection software to automatically log in without the need to go to a separate landing page. This ensures that its brand equity is not diluted and user confusion in terms of how to log in is avoided as the telco’s logo is clearly visible. The integration and testing process took just a month with services now live.

Andrew Schultz, Quiconnect’s head of marketing and strategy, says, “We were hired by this British telco in May 2006 to broaden its global hotspot footprint working with leading local network operators, like Kubi Wireless, so that its customers have the very best public WLAN coverage and user experience. I am delighted to report that this is going extremely well with a whole host of agreements signed in addition to the one in Spain.”

Caba concludes, “While usage is in line with forecasts, we expect traffic to ramp in 2007 as more and more of the telco’s customers become aware that they can get easy Internet access in Spain through our network.”

www.kubiwireless.com

[1]Assessment of Tourism in Spain, 2005 published by The Ministerio de Industria, Turismo Y Comercio

[2]Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea ? the body which manages and operates all of Spain’s airports.