Editor’s Note: With 2013 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from leading industry analysts and executives on what they expect to see in the new year.
Every year seems to bring a giant leap, or at least a shift, in technology. This is especially true for the wireless industry. Not too long ago, Wi-Fi was the ugly stepchild of the wireless world. Then WiMAX was the one to bet on, then LTE, now Wi-Fi is hot yet again. Looking ahead to 2013 it would be smart to place your chips on Wi-Fi driving new trends.
“Intelligent offloading:” Wi-Fi offloading enters second phase
There’s no doubt that mobile operators have identified mobile data offloading as a critical means of relieving the congestion on their networks. That stress will only grow as the migration from regular mobile phones to smartphones for all user demographics increases, smartphones get smarter, tablet computers such as the iPad continue to gain market share, and more and more devices become Wi-Fi-capable. E-readers have Wi-Fi. Gaming consoles have Wi-Fi. Devices are being designed to be faster, and with less of a drain on battery life, when using Wi-Fi.
Most carrier Wi-Fi installations have engaged in the first phase of Wi-Fi offloading: first build a comprehensive Wi-Fi network, use SIM authentication to make it seamless, and add some integration with the mobile core. These steps take offloading very far, and many installations in 2013 will be deployed this way.
In 2013 the industry will work toward closer integration with mobile core, for more intelligent offload.
The capacity crunch has led operators to leverage Wi-Fi offloading to relieve networks. However, smartphones aren’t always that smart: if they see a Wi-Fi network they’ll hold on to it and won’t let it go – even if the quality of the connection is poor. Smartphones are hanging on with their fingernails to the Wi-Fi network, even when the user is too far away from the access point. Connections stutter and get jumpy. At that moment it would actually be better for the user to simply jump back onto the 3G network.
But it is possible to make this process more intelligent. Intelligence about how much capacity the mobile network can handle at any given time vs. the Wi-Fi network can be gathered, and then conveyed to the smartphone about how to make the decision of whether Wi-Fi or 3G offers the best connection. Or perhaps there’s another stronger Wi-Fi network. This capability will become more imperative in 2013.
Wi-Fi becomes “just another radio network”
More operators are embracing Wi-Fi as simply another radio network, and this trend will continue. Not just a quick fix for offloading, but embracing Wi-Fi as one of the access methods they have, and using it for coverage for dense areas, or indoors. This is further fueled by the fact that cellular base station vendors are starting to sell their regular micro and pico base stations with Wi-Fi radio access built-in, just like GSM, UMTS and LTE.
They’re also seeing it as a part of their long-term strategy. Operators are realizing they simply don’t have enough spectrum to build-out, and even if they had the capital cost to deploy it can be less if Wi-Fi networks are built in parallel to take the edge off the load in the busiest locations.
Wi-Fi is here to stay, and 2013 is the year when operators will embrace this as just another access technology.
Monetizing “non-subscribers”
While a lot of operators are in a good position to monetize their current subscribers there is a whole audience of devices and users out there that needs to be addressed and catered to. Mobile carriers assume that every device and user they serve must be a subscriber. However, there could be a huge audience of “non-subscribers” to reach. Many of their subscribers have devices such as Wi-Fi-only devices that are not seen by their network, or there are people that may not be subscribers but they could become regular users of their network.
For 2013 operators will push harder to monetize this audience. Building a Wi-Fi network makes it possible to allow many more non-SIM-card-bearing devices access for a fee, which drives up the ARPU, and there can be significant additional revenue from Wi-Fi pay-per-use from “non-subscribers” that actually are subscribers to the competition that has not built any Wi-Fi coverage.
2013: The death of login
People are getting fed up with the extensive signup and registration processes that gate access to services in some locations. This will be the year of automatic system selection and automatic login. There are Wi-Fi services where, in order to get 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi, it is necessary to fill in a lengthy form. Time is an important commodity: complicated gating will push people toward competitors. It’s necessary to make that process automatic and seamless.
This is the year when the user will drive that part of the equation. Using SIM card authentication for those devices that already contain a SIM card is an excellent way to address this problem, and efforts such as Hotspot 2.0 are helping the industry to sort out how to do the system selection and automatic login as much as possible. But there are additional ways to address this. Social media such as Facebook are already paving the way for this shift to happen, as they are increasingly being used for login and authentication.
Using social media for login seems like a simple way to solve a complicated problem. However, it underscores a new tension we’re seeing, between the necessity to close networks for security while still catering to the one-click login.
There’s a need to balance privacy with access, and that’s a topic that the industry will soon be struggling with. As a result 2013 will be the year of contradictions for the wireless industry.
