Deutsche Telekom has tapped Cisco Meraki and Cisco Intercloud technology to launch HotSpot Plug’n’Play service – targeting SMB customers.
SMBs, including owners of cafes, hotels and shops, can offer Wi-Fi services in their properties. SMB customers can order Cisco Meraki Wi-Fi access points at Deutsche Telekom. After connecting to the Internet, the hot spot will start working as a regular Deutsche Telekom hot spot, and users can log on through their browsers at no charge. The offering extends Deutsche Telekom’s nationwide hot spot coverage.
Cisco has deployed more than 200,000 Meraki networks in 147 countries. Cisco Meraki offers cloud-managed IT solutions covering wireless access points, Ethernet switches, security appliances and enterprise mobility management, as well as users, end devices and applications from one central dashboard.
“We can manage thousands of access points through one cloud dashboard, which makes this widespread infrastructure easy to handle. Our customers can set up a quality hot spot in seconds and don’t need technical skills to do so,” said Dirk Backofen, vice president Business Marketing Telekom Deutschland.
By 2019, 58 percent of Germany’s mobile data traffic will be offloaded to femtocells and Wi-Fi, according to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index.
Deutsche Telekom will offer HotSpot Plug’n’Play for 99 euros (excl. VAT) for the access point, and 39.95 euros monthly fee (excl. VAT) in Germany. Deutsche Telekom plans to launch the service offering during Q2 of 2015.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom and Cisco are currently setting up the infrastructure for a redundant Intercloud node in Deutsche Telekom’s data centers in Magdeburg and Biere near Berlin, Germany.
