By Gerry Blackwell

Canada's four major cellular carriers last month scored a North American first when they agreed to work out details on a Wi-Fi hotspot roaming arrangement that would let users of one company's hotspots easily use others' hotspots as well.

It wasn't quite a global first -- a group of mobile carriers in France announced a similar initiative a few weeks before. The Canadian effort is also some time away from bearing real fruit -- although the participants are vowing to have a detailed agreement in place by the end of the year.

Whether they meet that deadline or not, the deal has interesting implications. For one, it begs the question, why haven't carriers in the U.S. done this? It's hard to see how the initiative can have anything but a positive impact on the hotspot industry, certainly in Canada and possibly beyond.

"We think that if you get four carriers to agree to something that is simple for users and relatively uniform, it will make it easier for enterprise users to adopt Wi-Fi," says Peter Barnes, president and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecom Association (CWTA), the industry group that brought the four carriers together.

Continued @ Wi-FiPlanet.com