CEO: Boingo is working with Apple, Microsoft, Google to get Passpoint on handsets

Capping off a busy quarter that saw Sprint (NYSE: S) emerge as the company's big Carrier Wi-Fi customer, Boingo CEO David Hagan said the Wi-Fi aggregator is working with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to help them implement Passpoint into handsets.

Having Passpoint in the handsets will speed the ability of other carriers to add Wi-Fi to their offerings, he told investment analysts during the earnings conference call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.

Boingo recently announced the signing of Sprint as part of the industry's first major carrier offload deal. That agreement will enable up to 40 million Sprint handsets to seamlessly offload traffic onto Boingo's Wi-Fi network, starting with 35 airports nationwide.

Asked how fast other carriers may follow--Boingo already has contracts with AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) that are based on per-megabyte pricing--Hagan said the testing that Boingo has been doing with OS companies like Apple, Google/Android and Microsoft covers most of the market, so that should make it easier for carriers to move forward when they want to.

"All of that work in the Passpoint, work that we've been doing industry-wide, really makes it easy for carriers to move forward when they want to," he said. "We feel like we've done a lot of the heavy lifting and lot of the kind of the industry infrastructure work to make it quicker to market and from a technology perspective. So it really just becomes a business strategy perspective more than a road block on having a commercial agreement or from a technology perspective."

Boingo also has a Passpoint roaming deal with Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) that includes more than 70,000 Passpoint hotspots throughout the United States.  

With Sprint, Boingo is on about 10 million handsets and moving toward 40 million by year-end.

Hagan also noted the momentum the Wi-Fi industry is seeing. Google recently introduced Project Fi, a Wi-Fi-first mobile offering that could pave the way for cable companies to launch a wireless business of their own, similar to what Cablevision is doing.

For more:
- see the Seeking Alpha transcript (sub. req.)
- listen to the webcast (reg. req.)

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