Boingo Wireless is using next week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC22) trade show to highlight a partnership of its own: It’s working with Qualcomm Technologies to streamline the deployment of IoT devices for venue and enterprise customers.
Using the Qualcomm IoT suite, Boingo can bring together the hardware, software and platforms required to enable IoT projects and connect devices with its private network solution.
“Large venues, enterprises and commercial real estate properties are seeking a complete IoT solution from design to deployment with a strong connectivity backbone. That’s where Boingo comes in,” said Michael J. Zeto III, chief commercial officer at Boingo, in a statement. “With the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite, we make it easier, quicker and more cost-effective to manage and deploy connected operations and streamline IoT vendor relationships.”
Some of the sectors they’re eyeing include transportation, commercial real estate, sports and entertainment, manufacturing, healthcare, military and government.
Use cases driving adoption are touchless entry points, digital payments, water and waste management, smart utilities, security management, predictive maintenance, asset tracking and more, according to Boingo.
Boingo said it’s now using the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite through its Network as a Service (NaaS) managed connectivity model. With NaaS, Boingo designs, deploys and manages private networks to power IoT with a “layered cybersecurity architecture and data insights.”
Partnerships are ‘key’
For any business in the digital transformation space, partnerships are key, and Boingo has a number of them, Zeto said.
For example, Boingo is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to integrate its edge and cloud services for distributed antenna systems (DAS), Wi-Fi and private network deployments. In the consumer space, it’s working with Cricket Wireless to provide roaming onto Boingo’s Passpoint network, which provides better Wi-Fi coverage when there are gaps in the macro cellular network.
“We’ll continue to announce major partnerships,” Zeto told Fierce. “No one company can do it all in our space, especially when it comes to digital transformation. So partnerships are really key.”
Zeto, who attended MWC for about eight years in a row prior to Covid, said he’s looking forward to returning to the event next week, where he’ll be speaking on a Wednesday panel on the proliferation of IoT and enterprise 5G deployments.
The two shows that he usually attends on an annual basis are CES in January and MWC. And while attendance at MWC will be lower than normal, the expectation is high for quality meetings.
“That really sets the tone for the year from a partnership perspective,” he said. “When you get the right people in the room, sometimes it’s better to have the right folks than a whole lot of folks. You can get a lot more done.”