TeliaSonera Sweden has signed a roaming agreement for public Wireless-LAN access with Swisscom.

Swisscom Eurospot and Swisscom Mobile offer Wi-Fi hotspots at more than 700 locations in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Subscribers to Telia HomeRun, Europe's leading hotspot service, are now provided coverage in most major European countries.

With the new agreements, all customers with Telia HomeRun subscriptions will now gain access to mobile broadband connections at more than 1,700 locations in Europe and at 450 sites in Sweden. TeliaSonera also has roaming agreements for W-LAN services with other operators, such as British Telecom, the leading operator in the U.K., and Metronet of Austria.

"This type of cooperation is very important because our HomeRun customers will be able to use mobile broadband services at a larger number of locations in other countries, which increases the value of our service considerably," says Erik Heilborn, head of the Business Segment at TeliaSonera Sweden.

In a roaming contract, two operators agree that their customers are allowed access to each other's network. As of today's agreement with Swisscom, TeliaSonera Sweden now has roaming agreements for W-LAN with six operators in Europe. TeliaSonera Sweden's HomeRun customers have access to mobile broadband hotspots in more than 2,150 sites today.

With the HomeRun service, business travellers and other people wanting to surf wireless with mobile broadband access can connect to the Internet or their own corporate intranet while they travel. The HomeRun service is available in selected locations at airports, hotels, conference centres, sports facilities, roadside restaurants, cafés and workplaces.

Swisscom is Switzerland's leading telecom operator with more than 3.5 million mobile customers. Swisscom Eurospot, a Swisscom subsidiary, offers mobile broadband connections in Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. and Belgium, among other countries.