Happy birthday to us! We’re 14 (which is about 114 in Wi-Fi years)…
GlobalReach Technology, as it operates today, is a multi-award winning organisation, supporting the world’s largest broadband carriers, managed service providers, most-respected brands and venues with carrier-grade guest Wi-Fi connectivity. Our services connect millions of users daily to Wi-Fi networks on land, at sea, in the air and underground.
On 19 October 2009, despite being a newly incorporated company, we had already established ourselves as an expert provider of large-scale, complex Wi-Fi networks. Our long and rich history in enterprise and public Wi-Fi services actually started way before our incorporation, with a live service at piers along the River Thames in London.
In 2012 we deployed the first public Wi-Fi service at every London Underground station, a service that we still provide today. By 2014, we furthered our reputation for providing highly reliable, large-scale Wi-Fi networks. With the world’s first large-scale municipal Passpoint service between San Jose and San Francisco, we began to develop our experience in deploying connectivity in a massive range of industry operating environments.
We’ve since delivered connectivity for capital cities, States, huge outdoor shopping centres, coffee chains, event and conference venues, train stations and airports. In the last seven years, we’ve extended into satellite connectivity, working with major satellite providers to deliver onboard crew and passenger Wi-Fi services in maritime and aviation. We stand by our statement that we are the only provider proven to deliver on the land, at sea, in the air and underground.
Longevity has also earned us leadership in secure, seamless Passpoint authentication. Our end-to-end Passpoint solution has proven global scalability and already delivers billions of public Wi-Fi authentications for live deployments every year. Who knew, when we deployed that first network between San Francisco and San Jose back in 2014, that the world’s biggest brand names and carriers would name the technology as shorthand for improving the user experience?
We’ve continued to show Passpoint leadership, winning the Best Network Operator award for the AT&T data offload service over LinkNYC in 2020, along with a shortlisting for Best Wireless Network Technology for our hybrid service in central London with Ontix, at the Wireless Broadband Awards. We’re shortlisted again this year for the Best Customer Experience Award with our partner Satcom Direct.
Reflecting our wider commitment to Open WiFi standards, we’re proud to continue to be part of the evolution of the Wi-Fi experience and are active members in several industry associations. We are long-time members of The Wireless Broadband Alliance and Charlie Allgrove, our senior architect, leads several of its working groups. Our CTO, Thomas Locke is a Board member of the Seamless Air Alliance, focused on developing automatic, secure authentication standards for in-flight passenger Wi-Fi. In the last couple of years, we’ve also joined the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), in support of its OpenWiFi standard to encourage network interoperability (or a more cellular user experience as some like to say).
We’re prouder still that some of our original customer networks AND the original team members who designed, deployed and managed them, are still with us today. Two of our senior team worked under Meshhopper, a specialist in large-scale mesh Wi-Fi networks, and at CodeCreation which managed the Thames pier network. The companies merged to form GlobalReach Technology. They were quickly joined by colleagues who are still key members of our support, engineering and software development teams.
Today, GlobalReach is a member of the Gate Worldwide Holdings group of companies, and along with our sister companies Nomadix and interTouch, can deploy and support Wi-Fi service providers and venues across the globe.
As you read this in October 2023, our Wi-Fi authentication services are now deployed in tens of thousands of locations around the world, our technology handles billions of Wi-Fi sessions and thousands of terabytes of data globally every year. This year we’ve also extended our established Wi-Fi management platform, using the core elements in a new onboarding and captive portal solution called Trusted WiFi. This cloud Wi-Fi platform is now helping broadband carriers and managed service providers to deliver Wi-Fi services quicker for their customers, letting them capitalise on the continued appetite for connectivity everywhere.
Across our established custom Wi-Fi solutions for the biggest networks and our latest product, our reputation continues to be built upon a trusted understanding of our customers’ requirements and delivering a world-class, reliable user experience supporting their strategy and brand.
Here’s to the next 114 years!