Comcast and Liberty Global reached an agreement today that allows users to access both companies’ Wi-Fi networks. This first-of-its-kind agreement is the first international Wi-Fi access partnership that Tom Nagel, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Comcast, says is, “…our first step in bringing global Wi-Fi connectivity to our customers.”

Liberty Global is better known in the U.S. for the Starz movie channel and owning part of DIRECTV. But by 2015, Americans will know Liberty Global as the company who has given them access to Wi-Fi networks across Europe.

Customers will have access to the two companies 5.5 million+ Wi-Fi hotspots throughout North America, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Poland and Switzerland. And as both companies continue to grow their Wi-Fi footprints, the number of Wi-Fi hotspots will also continue to grow.

The idea for this partnership is based off of the fact that consumers from all over the world are using the same technology, devices and spectrum to access Wi-Fi networks. So why not give the 12 million Europeans visiting the U.S. and the 11 million Americans visiting Europe annually an alternative to cellular data roaming?

Balan Nair, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Liberty Global expresses the hope of making deals like this with other cable companies in the future, “We are delighted to join forces with Comcast to begin building worldwide Wi-Fi connectivity and we hope that this will create interest from other cable operators to join us.”

The companies plan on launching a trial of the shared Wi-Fi service later this year and on a wider scale in 2015. Stop paying cellular data roaming charges and switch to XFINITY® by Comcast today!