­Alcatel-Lucent, and the Dutch cable operator Ziggo are conducting a trial of a technique to turn private homes into public Wi-Fi hotspots in order to provide wireless broadband access to Ziggo's customers.

Householders in the city of Groningen, in the northeast of the Netherlands, are participating in the community trial of cable-based Wi-Fi hotspots. The trial is using Alcatel-Lucent's lightRadio Wi-Fi technology to give multiple Ziggo subscribers simultaneous access to wireless Internet -- without impairing either the existing home broadband service quality or impacting the security of existing home WiFi networks.

Following the first phase of the trial in four districts of the city of Groningen, the service is being opened up to 18,000 homes in November, making it the largest and most dense hotspot network in the Netherlands.

These hotspots, located in people's residences, provide multiple subscribers with access to Internet services at any one time using a single simple login. Ziggo's customers taking part in the trial must give permission for their home modem router to be used as a hotspot, before they can access other subscribers' hotspots.

Heleen Elferink, Director Network & Systems Development of Ziggo said: "We are confident that the community Wi-Fi service we have built with Alcatel-Lucent is the first great step toward extending our services to customers outside their homes in a simple, reliable and secure way. The trial has already demonstrated that even with multiple subscribers accessing the Wi-Fi connection at the same time, speeds and quality are not compromised."