CommScope and Google Partner to Launch Orion Wifi for Private, Secure Roaming for Consumers
CommScope is partnering with Google’s Area 120 for the launch of Orion Wifi, a platform designed to bring private, secure roaming for consumers while helping public venues solve cellular dead zones and monetize their networks.
CommScope is announcing the RUCKUS SmartZone controller’s support of Google’s Orion Wifi, which lets carriers offer a friction-less and secure experience when connecting their subscribers to public Wi-Fi in venues.
The RUCKUS SmartZone from CommScope supports Hotspot 2.0 enabling devices to automatically detect and then connect to the Wi-Fi network. In addition, RUCKUS SmartZone provides advanced security and support for RadSec.
Pramod Badjate, SVP for the RUCKUS business, CommScope: ‘Developing this new platform for Wi-Fi offload with Google helps create the lasting connections CommScope has always delivered to consumers while enabling companies to monetize and secure their networks’.
Raj Gajwani, Director at Google’s Area 120: ‘CommScope’s RUCKUS SmartZone allows venues to easily configure Orion Wi-fi with the highest levels of security’. orion wifi
Signing up for Orion WiFi – and making it work
Here’s roughly how it works: If you’re public venue – say a restaurant or a conference centre, for example – and you want to make your Wi-Fi available to people with phones walking into your facility, you can sign up to become part of the Orion Wi-Fi service on the new Orion portal available here.
Basically, you connect with your Google account to set up your enterprise Wi-Fi network to work with Orion WiFi. Google says Orion Wi-Fi works with ‘most commercial and enterprise Wi-Fi systems,’ by which they presumably mean most Wi-Fi APs and (more importantly) controllers.
Once your Wi-Fi network is part of the Orion WiFi service, Google Fi and Republic Wireless subscribers walking into your venue will automatically connect to your Wi-Fi network – provided that quality and price is in order, Google says. “Orion Wi-Fi helps the local network tell the carrier about its price and quality. If the carrier decides the connection is good enough, we’ll auto-connect you. If the quality is too low, we won’t,” Google says in their blog. The venue will then receive payment “based on foot traffic, network quality, and other factors”, Google says on the Orion WiFi website.
