The corporate aggregator and end-point security provider partners with T-Mobile International across Europe: By the end of second quarter, iPass will add another 8,000 hotspot locations from T-Mobile's European operations. While iPass secured a relationship to resell access to U.S.-based T-Mobile points well over two years ago, the European partnership was more complex, said Rick Bilodeau, an iPass director. "This was a long time coming in terms of negotiations because we had to negotiate and get agreement from all the different T-Mobile subsidiaries and the T-Com subsidiary," he said.

The deal offers metered service up to a daily cap, similar to the T-Mobile USA arrangement. The partnership adds 3,500 hotels, 2,700 food establishments, and a number of Continental and UK airports. The company estimates it will top 60,000 hotspot locations worldwide when these locations are certified and added into their network in a few months. (This includes both wireline-only hotels and primarily Wi-Fi in other locations.)

While T-Mobile International and T-Mobile USA are part of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, a group of hotspot operators worldwide that have negotiated standardized roaming and authentication agreements, iPass isn't an operator, and has had to pursue these relationships separately.

Bilodeau spoke of the next frontier as mobile data, given the remarkably high charges for roaming access to 2.5G and 3G services while outside of a home country area. "We have EVDO in the US as a service that we bundle into the fold: one bill that covers your 3G and Wi-Fi and your dial, if you're still using dial. Our goal is to grow that internationally," he said.

iPass member companies use software provided and customized by the firm to offer a single unified login tied into a corporate authentication system, along with end-point security options that can require a virtual private network, up-to-date anti-virus software definitions, and/or an active firewall to connect to the Internet while outside of the office. iPass aggregates metered charges across a company's employees obviating the need for individual accounts with multiple providers for dial-up, wireline, and Wi-Fi access.