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The Cloud announces acquisition in Germany
Thursday, 17th January 2008
Acquisition of GlobalAirNet AG (Ganag), Germany’s leading provider of sophisticated high quality Wi-Fi services to four & five star hotels
The Cloud, Europe’s leading mobile wireless broadband service provider, today announced it has acquired 100% of the share capital of GlobalAirNet AG (Ganag), Germany’s leading provider of Wi-Fi services to four and five star hotels.
Ganag, based in Munich Germany, has over 5,300 Wi-Fi access points located in over 300 hotels, including Marriott, Swiss Hotel and Crowne Plaza, with further expansion contracted in the hotel sector. The Ganag service provides high quality in room and overall hotel Wi-Fi coverage for business and consumer access with a fully integrated billing service for in-room charging and voice over Wi-Fi for hotel staff.
The Cloud is Europe’s leading independent mobile wireless broadband service provider with over 12,000 network locations and over 20,000 access points in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands.
Steve Nicholson, The Cloud’s Chief Executive, confirmed the acquisition of Ganag was an important building block in respect of consolidating the German market, and provides the foundation, brand and credentials to accelerate The Cloud’s expansion into the European hospitality sector.
“The Cloud is a fast expanding European mobile wireless broadband service provider with market leading positions in the UK and Sweden and now, as a result of this transaction, we are also the leading independent Wi-Fi operator in Germany.
Our aspiration is to provide high quality, low cost mobile access to the internet which we achieve by building our networks in locations where the public gathers in large numbers or where the business traveller needs a quality data connection, such as in hotels. We predict that the mobile industry will continue to wrestle with poor performing data networks over the coming 12 to 18 months. We therefore see a significant opportunity for The Cloud as the imagination of the mass market is captured by the arrival of new multimedia Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices throughout 2008.”
The Cloud confirms that Mr. Achim Moehrlein, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Ganag, will be immediately appointed as Managing Director of The Cloud’s combined German business.
“The Cloud brings scale and enables the expansion of Ganag’s hotel services across Europe. For the past 5 years we have focused Ganag on building a strong position as a quality service provider in the German hospitality sector, with specific focus on four and five star hotels and specifically services required by the growing number of business travelers to Germany”, said Mr. Moehrlein.
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For further information on this announcement, please contact:
Nicola Savage, Mantra PR
Tel: +44 (0) 2074384910 nsavage@mantra-pr.com
Amanda-Jane Lewin, The Cloud
Tel: +44 (0) 7702911784 aj@thecloud.net
Niall Murphy, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, The Cloud niall.murphy@thecloud.net