Middle East telco giant Zain Group has signed a deal with iPass Inc., a provider of mobility services for enterprises and telecom service providers, which will allow Zain to provide its mobile customers with global Wi-Fi data roaming services.
Zain Group offering will use the iPass Open Mobile Exchange (iPass OMX) to provide customers with a global Wi-Fi roaming offering and access to the iPass Mobile Network, the world's largest commercial Wi-Fi network, at local rates.
"Zain is excited to work with iPass for this groundbreaking Wi-Fi roaming service that will provide the ultimate flexibility to our customers travelling abroad," said Hisham Akbar, Zain Group chief commercial officer. "Our customers will be able to use their smartphones and tablets to affordably data roam on Wi-Fi in over 700,000 locations internationally with the convenience of being charged on their home bill – it's a value added service that our mobile customers have desired in order to avert high data roaming charges."
The iPass Open Mobile Exchange enables mobile-network operators to maximize the impact of their roaming offer with minimum effort, the companies said. Customers can seamlessly connect to more than 700,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in 117 countries, in key locations such as airports, hotels, convention centers, coffee shops and more.
