Wireless Broadband Alliance

The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) is an industry association formed to promote interoperability between operators in the Wi-Fi industry, with the stated aim of providing an excellent user experience.^[1][2] To achieve this, the WBA promotes interoperability initiatives including the Next Generation Hotspot (NGH), Wi-Fi Roaming and the WBA's Interoperability Compliance Program. The WBA runs the Wi-Fi Global Congress, an industry meeting.^[3] and hosts webinars to share best practice and advance knowledge.

Initiatives

• The Wireless Broadband Alliance's Interoperability Compliance Program (ICP) provides a set of Wi-Fi guidelines for mobile operators to standardise the way devices connect to and roam on Wi-Fi networks. These guidelines include: security, device authentication, network implementation, and billing models and mechanisms.^[1]

• The Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) is a concept intended to make the end-user experience of public Wi-Fi networks, including roaming between and onto wireless hotspots, significantly simpler for devices, automatically handling the login and access processes.^[1]

^[4]

Membership

The members of Wireless Broadband Alliance include a mix of Wi-Fi, mobile and broadband operators and wireless technology manufacturers. Members include AT&T, BT, Orange, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, Cisco, LG, Intel, Ericsson,CableLabs, MediaTek, Mosaik Solutions, NEC BIGLOBE, Qualcomm, Sharedband, Smith Micro, Spice Digital, Telkom Indonesia, The Cloud^[5] and Telecom New Zealand.^[2]

Collaborations

The WBA works with the Wi-Fi Alliance ^[6] to promote ease of use on and roaming between wireless hotspots.^[7]

The WBA has partnerships with the following organisations:

• GSMA
• Small Cell Forum
• CableLabs

See also

• Wireless Broadband
• WiMAX
• Metro Wireless

References

External links

• Official website