Boingo Wireless, announced that the Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype is the first Wi-Fi device to ship with the Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit, an open-source software utility that enables Wi-Fi devices to roam on commercial hot spots.

The Boingo Embedded software provides background detection, association and authentication of public Wi-Fi signals automatically, making it easy for consumers to roam onto commercial hot spots and eliminating the need to enter user ID or credit card information for each hot spot they use.

The Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype incorporates familiar Skype features and can be used with either open wireless networks or commercial hot spots that are part of the Boingo Mobile service. The phone also supports WPA and WPA2 with PSK security and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi network compatibility.

“We believe that adding Boingo’s roaming functionality to our Wi-Fi phone is a market differentiator,” said Chris Andrews, Business Unit Manager, at Belkin. “The ability to leverage the Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit’s free open source code enables us to create a product with a compelling set of features without onerous licensing agreements or fees.”

“Belkin is pioneering the first wave of portable devices that can be significantly enhanced by Wi-Fi roaming capabilities,” said Jonathan Mendelson, Boingo director of handset strategy. “We expect that VoIP phones will be followed by Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones and other devices that can make use of Wi-Fi bandwidth for applications ranging from text messaging to streaming video, multi-player gaming and others.”

The Boingo Embedded Toolkit is an open source solution that runs on BREW, Linux, Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Mobile 5 versions, with support for other operating systems coming in 2007. It is designed for service providers, OEMs, ODMs, and chipset manufacturers that develop Wi-Fi equipped devices and want to enable global roaming on commercial hot spot networks. It is also available as licensed software. More information is available at www.boingo.com/embedded.

The Boingo Mobile service provides unlimited Internet access to users of Wi-Fi enabled devices that have been integrated with the Boingo Embedded Wi-Fi Toolkit. Users of those devices can access the Internet in tens of thousands of hot spots in 60 countries around the world. More information about the service is available at http://mobile.boingo.com. The service is currently only available on Belkin devices at a cost of $7.95 per month for unlimited access