New approach eliminates barriers, empowering venues to join the global OpenRoaming network and deliver seamless, secure WiFi.

Manchester, Lancs, Nov. 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Purple, a global leader in guest WiFi and connectivity platforms, today announced a pivotal commitment to advancing the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) OpenRoaming standard. To remove financial friction for venues, Purple is offering its entry-level Guest WiFi solution, Connect, free of charge, along with free OpenRoaming enablement across a venue's network estate.

Businesses can join the OpenRoaming network for free, using Purple software

This initiative is a critical step in democratizing access to the OpenRoaming network, inviting venue owners, network managers, and industry partners to expand the secure, automated WiFi utility worldwide. 

OpenRoaming is designed to make connecting to WiFi as seamless as cellular, leveraging a federated network model to eliminate repetitive logins and deliver ubiquitous, secure connectivity. More than 3,000 OpenRoaming certificates have been issued, and over 800 end entities are actively using OpenRoaming today. Purple's free Connect offering supports this mission by providing the foundation businesses need to participate, ensuring the benefits of OpenRoaming are accessible to all.

Venues can adopt the Purple Connect platform and enable OpenRoaming without any software license fees. OpenRoaming provides an automatic, secure WiFi experience as users move between hotspots globally. Visitors connect once and then roam securely across OpenRoaming hotspots worldwide. Connect is hardware-agnostic and can be set up quickly using existing WiFi hardware or with a plug-and-play Purple Hub, and it includes analytics dashboards to proactively manage the solution.

"Purple's mission is to free the internet, including increasing digital inclusion, and that starts with removing friction—not just for users, but for the businesses that provide connectivity," said Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple. "By offering our Connect platform and OpenRoaming enablement for free, we are eliminating the financial and technical hurdles for any venue to join the world's secure, seamless WiFi network. This is our commitment to the WBA and to accelerating the vision of WiFi as a trusted, essential utility for everyone, everywhere."

Tiago Rodrigues, President and CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, said: "WBA OpenRoaming is redefining Guest Public WiFi by enabling a seamless, automatic, and secure experience for every user. Our partnership with forward-thinking members like Purple is expanding this ecosystem and helping venues deliver next-generation connectivity at scale. By breaking down financial and technical barriers, we are elevating WiFi into a trusted global utility - one that organizations can innovate on and people can rely on at every step of their journey."

By providing OpenRoaming functionality at no cost, Purple is accelerating the WBA's goal of establishing a pervasive, secure wireless infrastructure for the benefit of billions of end users globally.

To get started with OpenRoaming, click here. To read more about Purple Connect, please visit the Purple website.

About Purple

Purple is the leading global connectivity platform that has built the world's largest public WiFi network. Their mission is to make WiFi a secure, seamless, and ever-present utility for everyone, everywhere. A global force with a presence in 89 countries, the platform is a powerful network that serves nearly 500 million users across 80,000 venues, with automatic, secure access to over 5 million hotspots through the ConneX app. 

Press inquiries

Purple
https://www.purple.ai
The Purple Press Team
press@purple.ai