Telecom Lead Europe: Alcatel-Lucent and Dutch cable operator Ziggo are conducting trials to turn private homes into public Wi-Fi hotspots to provide wireless broadband access to Ziggo’s customers.

Householders in the city of Groningen, in the northeast of the Netherlands, are participating in the European community trial of cable-based Wi-Fi hotspots.

The trial is using Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio Wi-Fi technology to give multiple Ziggo subscribers access to wireless Internet without impairing either the existing home broadband service quality or impacting the security of existing home WiFi networks.

Following the first phase of the trial in four districts of the city of Groningen, the service is being opened up to 18,000 homes in November. For Ziggo’s customers, a secure wireless broadband connection is vital to allow them to access Internet services on the move.

Alcatel-Lucent is enabling Ziggo to give their customers access to a wide variety of Wi-Fi hotspots without the need to remember complicated authentication passwords. These hotspots, located in people’s residences, provide multiple subscribers with access to secure high-bandwidth video and other Internet services at any one time using a single simple login.

“We are confident that the community Wi-Fi service we have built with Alcatel-Lucent is the first great step toward extending our services to customers outside their homes in a simple, reliable and secure way. The trial has already demonstrated that even with multiple subscribers accessing the Wi-Fi connection at the same time, speeds and quality are not compromised,” said Heleen Elferink, director Network & Systems Development of Ziggo.

“Alcatel-Lucent has deep-rooted expertise in delivering novel communications solutions to meet the needs of operators across the globe. By working closely with Ziggo we have been able to develop our lightRadio Wi-Fi technology further to offer a complete Wi-Fi access solution available today,” said Paul Wijngaard, account director at Alcatel-Lucent.

[email protected]