WiFi Planet generates new partnerships, products

This week at Voice over WiFi Planet--formerly WiFi Planet--new roaming packs were negotiated, hot spot deals were announced and a host of new Wi-Fi products were released.

BelAir Networks and Pronto announced a partnership to jointly market and sell Pronto's Wi-Fi OSS solution with BelAir's W-LAN network gear, allowing municipal and metro Wi-Fi providers to design and deploy citywide networks quickly. The two companies' marketing teams will work together on the same sales channels and form a cross-training program. The two companies also announced the first joint deployment of their solutions for the Alamo Plaza area of downtown San Antonio, Texas.

BelAir Networks also launched a new wireless mesh cluster node and network management software suite. The software suite is designed to integrate with BelAir's complete portfolio of multiservice switch routers and nodes, allowing providers to remotely monitor and manage access points and users. The BelAir50c single-radio mesh cluster node is designed for coverage at the edges of metropolitan and municipal networks, basically providing backhaul and access capabilities over a single radio.

Hotspot aggregator Wayport announced a hot spot deal with International House of Pancakes (IHOP) to launch Wi-Fi and wireless access pilot programs in 70 of its diners across the country. Wayport will supply broadband connections to the locations, using the pipes to support applications like cashless payments, stream dining room music and supply Wi-Fi access directly to customers.

Cheetah Wireless Technologies announced it would use Nomadix's Service Engine software into its Las Vegas and Encinitas, Calif., networks. Nomadix customers will be able to roam onto Cheetah's network.