Hot spot aggregators
Recently I have had an opportunity to research and recommend to a large university in Canada a wireless system that has a back-end system that would take care of accounting, access, authorization, security, and would allow the students to take their computers, or laptops anywhere that wireless is found and be able to operate on the same program. The only company that I have found that has a complete back-end is "hereUare" from San Jose, Calif. Are there others out there? Is hereUare a good product? Thanks, Stan

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hereUare is one of several "hotspot aggregators" that enable roaming between independently-managed hotspots. Other companies in this field include Boingo, iPass, GRIC, and Wayport, to name just a few. These providers have all created back-end systems that support mediated authentication, authorization and accounting, allowing subscribers to access any participating hotspot while using one login and receiving one bill for service.

Last summer, Chris Kozup, an analyst with the META Group, advised hereUare customers to abandon ship to avoid growing pains resulting from impending sale - see this METAbits note. hereUare subsequently sold its Wi-Fi Metro subsidiary to IKANO Communications last fall, which you will now find operating under the brand name Hotspotzz. Aggregators like hereUare, Boingo and Wayport are newer companies founded specifically to address wireless roaming, while iPass and GRIC are older companies that have added wireless support to established dial-up Internet access roaming services. Hotspot aggregation is a highly dynamic and competitive market, so it's difficult to predict where these companies will stand a year from now.

This was first published in April 2003