The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has announced 14 new members including French vendor Alcatel-Lucent as well as Saudi operator Mobily, Australia’s Telstra and Telus from Canada.

Earlier this year, the alliance unveiled a definition of carrier Wi-Fi with the aim of aligning itself more closely with the operator community.

Since the start of the year, the industry body has signed up the new members, which also include Airi Ventures, BAI, Broadcom, Charter Communications, DigiCert, Elitecore, Gemalto, Global Reach, Liberty Global and Linktel.

It is perhaps surprising that Alcatel-Lucent was not already a member, given its peer group is well represented in the alliance’s ranks. Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and Cisco are all members.

Operators are well represented on the board of the alliance. by AT&T, BT, KT, NTT Docomo and Orange. The general membership numbers some 20 operators, in addition to the three newcomers.

The members participate in WBA-led initiatives which include the promotion of global Wi-Fi roaming, its Interoperability Compliance Program (ICP) and trials of the Next Generation Hotspot.