Multinet Is Driving Innovation With Region’s First Open Wi Fi Deployment

Multinet, Pakistan’s business communications company of choice, announced today that it will use Telecom Infra Project’s OpenWiFi technology to power Wi-Fi networks across the country. Customers in the public, hospitality, sports and entertainment, and retail enterprise sectors will benefit from Multinet’s OpenWiFi networks, which will provide seamless high-speed connectivity.

Multinet, well-known in Pakistan for providing cutting-edge telecom solutions, is the region’s first managed service provider to deploy OpenWiFi’s technology stack to provide the general public and customers with seamless, fast, and affordable connectivity.

With the goal of “Connectivity for all,” Multinet has been providing quality public Wi-Fi across Pakistan, covering all major airports, various public places, malls, and recreational areas with its Wi-Fi infrastructure.

“Our single mission is to deliver superior connectivity solutions for Pakistan while also reaching out to the public and masses through our public Wi-Fi initiative,” Adnan H. Zaidi, Chief Operating Officer at Multinet, said. “By using open and disaggregated technology, such as OpenWiFi, we will continue to lead the market with innovation that delivers exceptional service, quality, and reliability for the public, our customers and stakeholders. This will greatly expand our public Wi-Fi footprint and reach while providing superior scalability.”

“OpenWiFi is the perfect solution for Multinet because it offers competitive total cost of ownership (TCO) and eliminates vendor lock-in,” said Sandeep Kohli, Connectivity Technologies and Ecosystems Manager, Meta and member of the TIP Open Optical and OpenWiFi Program Groups. “It also eliminates the need to introduce additional controllers opening new deployment use cases, such as Wi-Fi networks built for the public, hospitality, sports and entertainment and retail segments, not previously addressed due to cost considerations in these markets.”

“Multinet is leading the region in open and disaggregated technology deployments and we’re excited to see how OpenWiFi will benefit Multinet’s customers,” said Kristian Toivo, Executive Director, TIP.

OpenWiFi is a Wi-Fi architecture based on open source that enables multi-vendor, interoperable Wi-Fi networks. TIP OpenWiFi-based solutions allow service providers, such as Multinet, to seamlessly mix and match access points and controllers from any TIP OpenWiFi compliant manufacturer to create a unified infrastructure, allowing it to easily expand its Wi-Fi footprint while maintaining a robust experience. Because it is open source, it also enables developers to create new applications quickly.

Multinet is deploying Edgecore APs integrated with their ecOpen Cloud Controller technology for their OpenWiFi network and hotspots, which are supported by high-speed optical fibre infrastructure and built in collaboration with a local System Integrator partner in Pakistan, STARCOM Technologies (Pvt) Limited.

Multinet recently announced the deployment of a 3.2 Tbps long-haul network infrastructure using TIP Open Optical and Packet Transport Technologies, demonstrating the company’s commitment to open and agile disaggregated architecture and technologies.

OpenWiFi, which will be launched in 2021, has recently announced commercial deployments in the United States with Boingo Wireless, in India with Spectra, and a trial with the City of Dublin and Virgin Media that complies with the European Commission’s WIFI4EU initiative, which is the European benchmark for public Wi-Fi deployments in Europe.