New technology will enable Liquid Telecom to offer enhanced Wi-Fi services to businesses and bring benefits to consumers in the region

17 January 2017 – Liquid Telecom is now helping African businesses deploy and manage world-class Wi-Fi for their customers, through a new partnership with GlobalReach Technology.

Liquid Telecom’s managed Wi-Fi services are available to businesses that want enterprise-grade Wi-Fi without the worries of procuring and managing a wireless LAN service.

The GlobalReach service enables businesses offering Wi-Fi to their guests to connect and engage with these customers through a branded guest Wi-Fi experience and tap into new branding and advertising opportunities. It also offers comprehensive analytics on user demographics and engagement, enabling businesses to better understand their customers and tailor service to customer needs and behaviours.

“The partnership with GlobalReach brings the power and scale of a global Wi-Fi enabler into Liquid’s core network and data centres, allowing our customers to benefit from the latest Wi-Fi technology deployed in-country,” said David Behr, Chief Product Officer at Liquid Telecom.

The service combines connectivity from Liquid Telecom with hardware from Ruckus Wireless and a cloud-based platform from GlobalReach, which provides authentication, authorisation and accounting (AAA) and customisable captive portals. It enables the smallest cafes to the largest shopping malls and hotels to offer Wi-Fi securely to their customers without having to incur large up front installation costs.

“Wi-Fi that works for both staff and visitors is critical in the corporate environment, while reliable free Wi-Fi is also becoming an expectation of visitors and customers to many venues. Insights into customer behaviour leads to an enhanced customer experience, driving additional sales and enabling new revenue streams through proximity marketing, which in turn pays for the Wi-Fi service,” commented Ellie Hagopian, Head of Wi-Fi Strategy at Liquid Telecom.

Liquid Telecom’s managed Wi-Fi is available for a fixed monthly fee and will be available in 8 countries across the region.

Additional information:

  • The number of public Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide is projected to increase from 64 million in 2015 to 432 million by 2020, according to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index.
  • Liquid Telecom’s existing managed Wi-Fi customers, along with Liquid Telecom’s public Wi-Fi networks, will be migrated to the new platform powered by GlobalReach Technology over the coming months.
  • The secure, scalable GlobalReach Technology platform delivers billions of sessions every year. It supports some of the largest and most advanced community, large enterprise and SMB Wi-Fi services, including LinkNYC in New York, London Underground with Virgin Media and XLN Business’ UK SMB Wi-Fi service.
  • Liquid Telecom collected the ‘Best Wi-Fi Deployment to Connect the Unconnected in Rural Environment’ award at the World Wi-Fi Day Awards earlier this year for its free Wi-Fi project in Nakuru County, Kenya.
  • Managed Wi-Fi has emerged as a compelling solution for governments and municipalities to offer free Wi-Fi to citizens in a reliable, cost-effective manner, and use that platform to deliver e-government services.

About Liquid Telecom Group:
www.liquidtelecom.com

Liquid Telecom is the leading independent data, voice and IP provider in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. It supplies fibre optic, satellite and international carrier services to Africa’s largest mobile network operators, ISPs, financial institutions and businesses of all sizes. In June 2016, Liquid Telecom agreed to purchase Neotel, South Africa’s first converged communications network operator, for ZAR6.55 billion, creating the first pan-Africa fibre player.

Liquid Telecom has built Africa’s largest single fibre network currently spanning over 40,000km, including Neotel’s network , across borders and covering Africa’s fastest-growing economies where no fixed network has existed before.

Working under various brands, the Liquid Telecom Group has operating entities in Botswana, DRC, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, UK, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The company has been named Best African Wholesale Carrier for the last five years at the annual Global Carrier Awards.

Media contact:
Bridget Fishleigh
bridget@telecomsprafrica.com
T+44 7946 342 903

About GlobalReach Technology:
www.globalreachtech.com

GlobalReach Technology is a leader in Wi-Fi AAA and captive portal solutions and software that are purpose-built for today’s service providers, to manage complex wireless services for business and consumer customers.

We specialize in allowing carriers to quickly deploy tailored and advanced Wi-Fi services to meet the needs of their customers, including some of the world’s recognised most advanced and complex Wi-Fi networks.

Built using the world’s leading cloud-RADIUS / AAA authentication engine, our award-winning software also includes secure captive portal, and the only Passpoint Hotspot 2.0 online signup server (OSU) to support all major wireless networks and devices.

Its software and cloud-based platform delivers billions of authentications a year for Wi-Fi services including the award-winning LinkNYC, London Underground, San Francisco, San Jose, Sydney, Mexico and throughout Europe.

GlobalReach also provides professional services to support its deployments.

Media contact:
Kate Cleevely
kate@globalreachtech.com
T. +44 7754 920043