Seamless Roaming with the GlobeTrotter Combo Edge Wi-Fi Card

The GlobeTrotter Combo Edge and Wi-Fi card by Option Wireless has been approved by the FCC and PTCRB and will begin shipping to North American and European carriers. Since it has Quad band capabilities, it can be used on any GPRS network, SESAM is also supported and will allow for seamless roaming from GPRS to Wi-Fi and other carriers.

Almost every mid to upper-range notebook on the market ships wirelessly enabled, so having Wi-Fi on the combo card is really not such a big deal, but being able to roam between your standard local network and cellular network would be a great capability for many mobile professionals.

Douglas Ros, VP of Business Development and Marketing at Option Wireless told MobileMag, "With a life cycle of 3-4 years within an enterprise for notebook replacements, there is still a huge market of existing install base PC's that are not Wi-Fi enabled, these machines represent some 70% of the notebook population today."

See press release below.

Option’s GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE wins Regulatory Approval for US and European markets

Option N.V., the wireless technology company, today announced that it has received the mandatory technical certifications FCC and PCTRB for use on EDGE and GPRS networks in the US. Having formal certification enables Option to start commercial shipments of the Quad band GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE product to US operators. For the European market Option has also received the statutory CE & R&TTE approvals and has started shipping commercial products to its European customers.

In order to promote efficient use of the radio spectrum in US markets the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has developed technical standards for devices that are capable of emitting radiofrequency energy when in use – such as wireless data cards. These products, including now Option’s GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE, need to receive FCC identification numbers in accordance with the Commission Equipment Authorization rules prior to marketing in US markets. This FCC certification is similar to the CE certificate for the European markets.

PTCRB Approval is required for all products entering the North American markets. The purpose of the PTCRB (PCS Type Certification Review Board) is to provide the framework within which GSM Mobile Equipment (ME) Type Certification can take place for members of the PTCRB (amongst the members are the most important US network operators.

On an EDGE network, GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE enables connection to the Internet at data speeds of up to 247 kbps. Move into range of a public Wi-Fi hotspot, the corporate wireless network or the home wireless network and the GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE provides connection at speeds up to 54Mbps. In areas where EDGE or Wi-Fi services are not available the data card still enables reliable and secure data connections over traditional GPRS.

Option offers its premier GlobeTrotter Mobility Manager software with the GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE enabling users of the data card to have fast, simple and easy access to wireless data whilst hiding from the user the complexity of underlying wireless EDGE, GPRS and WLAN (Wi-Fi) technologies. In addition network operators implementing Option’s mobile IP solution, SESAM, will be able to provide their users with a Seamless Roaming experience regardless of access technology. The GlobeTrotter COMBO EDGE, as other data cards within the GlobeTrotter family, is Microsoft WHQL certified, has inbuilt support for SIM authentication (EAP-SIM) enabling automatic authentication on WiFi networks, and supports Microsoft’s PC Smart Card services (PCSC) within the Microsoft Windows Operating System.

Via