Liberty Global is to deploy Devicescape technology to help mobile customers track down nearby Wi-Fi hotspots.
Devicescape’s Curated Virtual Network (CVN) has been deployed as WiFi Buddy on Liberty’s UK operation, Virgin Media, since February 2014.
“Wi-Fi is essential to our mobile strategy, boosting coverage and capacity — particularly indoors — while driving economic efficiencies which we can pass on to our customers,” said Graeme Oxby, Managing Director, European Mobile Operations, Liberty Global. “By combining Wi-Fi and cellular as we are able to with the Devicescape solution, we are also delivering a significant improvement to the customer experience.”
“Adoption by a company of Liberty Global’s stature is clearly a huge endorsement for Devicescape, and our unique approach to the curation of amenity Wi-Fi,” added Dave Fraser, CEO, Devicescape. “More importantly for the wider industry, this is the first top tier deployment of a service that truly integrates cellular with the huge resource of free, intentionally shared public Wi-Fi. It illustrates how insatiable consumer demand is driving development of new service models which are changing the nature of connectivity service provision.”
Deployment of the app takes the pressure off Liberty’s mobile infrastructure – itself usually run as an MVNO – and onto third party and its own Wi-Fi hotspots.
