European Wi-Fi operator gets 15M EUR for expansion
The Cloud, a UK-based operator of Wi-Fi hotspots in Europe, has closed a €15 million round of financing from its current investors (Ferd Venture of Norway and GP Bullhound). The company will use the funds to expand its network of locations across Europe. At present, their hotspots are mostly in the UK, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, and they have partnerships with iPass (the Wi-Fi hotspot aggregator), O2, Orange and Vodafone.
Recently, BT announced the termination of its partnership with The Cloud in the UK. The partnership had given BT Openzone subscribers access to The Cloud’s Wi-Fi network in the UK.
Click here to see all of The Cloud’s networks across Europe.
While I am happy to see more Wi-Fi hotspots being deployed across Europe, the biggest hassle is finding one aggregator that you can subscribe to so that you have access to ALL of the networks across the continent and in the UK. Boingo is very good. I have a Boingo account and I use it in many places including Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, but they don’t have roaming agreements with everyone. iPass recently entered the consumer market but they do not have a Mac client. T-Mobile is the most Wi-Fi “friendly” European operator but they charge you extra fees when you use a T-Mobile hotspot outside your home country (so much for the European “union”).
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I’ve just stumbled across this article and was amazed to find no reference to us! Trustive is a leading international WiFi hotspot aggregator with a network of 90,000 WiFi hotspots (including Schiphol airport) in 65 countries around the world. We’ve spent the last 5 years investing heavily, combining the hotspot locations of more than 70+ leading WiFi operators and thereby creating one unified, global network which our customers can access through a single username and password. Unlike the above mentioned operator, Trustive has no hidden costs and absolutely no download charges regardless of where you connect from or how much you upload/download.
Please feel free to check out our website for more info (www.trustive.com) or contact us directly: support@trustive.com