Boingo has signed a roaming agreement with FON that will provide access to an additional 130,000 hot spot locations – more than doubling the company’s network size.

The 130,000 Wi-Fi locations come from businesses and individuals who add their own hot spots to the FON community in exchange for the right to roam on other FON community locations for free or at a reduced rate. For Boingo users, these new locations provide a rich network of Wi-Fi locations in areas that complement Boingo’s existing commercial locations.

Access to the FON network will also benefit users of Boingo Mobile, the company’s service for Wi-Fi-enabled handsets. Boingo Mobile users pay $7.95 per month for unlimited access to hot spots worldwide to make VoIP calls, use messaging services or surf the Internet from their handset.

“Boingo users have counted on the Boingo Roaming System for great coverage at major business travel locations, and now have the same great coverage outside of those locations with the addition of the FON community locations,” said Luis Serrano, Boingo vice president of network strategy.

“FON is continuing to attract important partners as it executes its business plan and builds a unique collection of Wi-Fi locations around the globe,” said Joanna Rees, CEO of FON U.S. “Now, the benefits of the FON network are available to a new audience – business travelers – who get ubiquitous coverage along with Boingo’s ease of use benefits.”

FON hot spots are provided by community members (called Foneros) who share their unused bandwidth via a FON router in exchange for free Wi-Fi access when roaming through any other FON access point. FON recently signed a partnership with Time Warner Cable, to give their cable modem service subscribers the opportunity to be members of the FON community and enjoy free unlimited Wi-Fi access at any of FON's partner ISP Wi-Fi hotspots.

Boingo – The Best Network For Business Travelers

Boingo gives business travelers the best choice of Wi-Fi hot spots by combining tens of thousands of locations from more than 150 leading Wi-Fi operators into one worldwide network. Boingo users can connect to any of these locations with a single Boingo account using Boingo’s free Wi-Fi client software, which combines more than 660 network names into one “Boingo Wireless®” network and stores the user name and password to simplify identifying and connecting to commercial Wi-Fi networks.

The program provides partners with access to this network, customized client software, and a full suite of back-office billing, roaming, mediation and clearinghouse services to allow them to offer their own Wi-Fi service quickly and cost effectively. To date, the company has announced Platform Services partnerships with BT Infonet, EarthLink, Fiberlink, Nextel Communications, Verizon Business and Skype.