(18 October 2007 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: VSNL which has been involved in providing Wi-Fi Hotspots in India, today announced expansion of its international in-roaming service on Wi-Fi, with the addition of NTT, Japan.

Starhub Singapore already utilizes the VSNL Wi-Fi network across India for its customers.

According to an official release, VSNL has one of the largest Wi-Fi deployment among domestic ISPs with over 350 hotspots. It plans to further enhance the footprint to over 1000 hotspots - bringing high-speed broadband internet much more closer to the large Indian traveling population.

VSNL's hotspots include the major domestic and international airports, leading premium Star hotels, educational institutions, sports stadia, hospitals, chain of restaurants and coffee shops.

Its partners include companies like Taj Group of Hotels, Le Meridien, Café Coffee Day, Barista, Manipal University, Wockhardt, amongst others. It has also been creating hotspots at non-traditional locations like mobile stores, IT stores, railway stations.

VSNL is also member of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), a leading global consortium of Wi-Fi service providers.

Operator members of WBA own and operate over 60,000 Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide and the membership in WBA enables VSNL to leverage the same.

"Over the next six months, VSNL intends to open up its extensive Wi-Fi network to millions of customers of international telecom operators, thereby enabling for travelers to India, access to high speed wireless broadband zones in key locations in the top 10 cities in the country. " said VSNL retail broadband business VP planning Prateek Pashine.