Carriers have lagged behind cable operators in Wi-Fi deployments, but now it looks like mobile operators are ready to catch up. Carrier-grade Wi-Fi hotspots are expected to grow from 14% of overall Wi-Fi hotspots today to 72% by 2018, according to research from Real Wireless and Rethink Technology commissioned by Amdocs. Eighty-five percent of the mobile operators surveyed plan to invest in carrier Wi-Fi by 2016.
“Service providers are starting to see Wi-Fi as a strategically important offering that can enhance or damage their reputations and which needs to support a user experience comparable to that of cellular networks,” said Oliver Bosshard, managing consultant at Real Wireless.
“The tipping point for carrier Wi-Fi was this September: Apple’s Wi-Fi calling has created huge interest in Wi-Fi for carriers,” said analyst Claus Hetting, chairman of the Wi-Fi Innovation Forum. “I believe every mobile carrier will offer Wi-Fi calling inside of 12-24 months.”
This week in Dallas, the first-ever Carrier Wi-Fi Americas event was held in tandem with Small Cells Americas. Core topics included connection management, location-based services, and making a business case for HotSpot 2.0. Carriers discussed successful Wi-Fi offload strategies and opportunities for more Wi-Fi deployments.
“They’re looking at it as a converged tool in their toolkit,” said Alan Law, chairman of the Small Cell Forum. “Operators are looking at how to deliver the best service to their customers and which tools they can use to do that. And what you’re seeing is really a coming together in terms of deployments in terms of the products as well as the capabilities between the cellular and the unlicensed Wi-Fi type of capabilities.”
As a vendor of both cellular and Wi-Fi solutions, Cisco was a major presence at Small Cells Americas and Carrier Wi-Fi Americas. Distinguished consulting engineer Mark Grayson of Cisco described Wi-Fi as “the disruptor to classical cellular,” and challenged the idea that enterprises want converged connectivity solutions, saying that many enterprises want to keep Wi-Fi and cellular separate because of security concerns.
Image source: Amdocs
