Arqiva, the UK communications infrastructure firm, is to acquire Wi-Fi operator Spectrum Interactive for £23.4m ($36.7m), to support offload and white label Wi-Fi hotspot services.
The company becomes the UK’s fourth largest Wi-Fi provider, with around 15,500 access points. The Spectrum WLan currently handles over 1.7m user sessions at 2,100 locations, including hotels, restaurants, airports, service stations and high street outlets.
The purchase is designed to complement Arqiva’s wholesale mobile data business, whose main components are 16,000 cellular towers, and the InBuilding neutral host network for landlords and estate owners. Several UK players are showing an interest in building wholesale-only 4G and/or Wi-Fi networks to support services from partners. Cableco Virgin Media is setting up a hotspot system in the London Underground, for instance, as well as trialling 4G small cells, all of which would support other operators. Arqiva has been involved in LTE trials, particularly for rural broadband.
Arqiva’s CEO, John Cresswell, commented in a statement: ‘Uniquely, we would be the only wholesale provider with no associated retail service. We are well placed to help define the Wi-Fi space for all UK landlords and business providers, allowing us to individually tailor services for our customers to meet the growing demand for data capacity.’ He sees demand from both cellcos and landlords as the growth in mobile data accelerates.
Arqiva said that it did not intend to expand into own-branded public Wi-Fi, like BT Openzone, but would continue with Spectrum Interactive’s strategy of offering white label services to customers such as hotel chains. All Spectrum employees will transfer to the buyer.