Although a very small portion of the customer base, AT&T noted: “In fact, these customers on average use 12 times more data than the average of all other smartphone data customers.” However, in our upcoming Mobile Workforce Report, 43% of mobile workers reported having a smartphone bill that they thought was too expensive. And, 22% didn’t KNOW.. because they don’t see the bill; their employer does.
So I read with interest this story by Lynette Luna: Sprint’s unlimited data usage with iPhone could be compelling for the enterprise. An analyst quoted in the article, commented that with the iPhone coming out on Sprint, enterprises might want to look into packages for fixed and mobile access. For international travelers, you would definitely want to check with Sprint’s website on whether your phone will work in Europe, as Rick Steve’s points out in Mobile Phones in Europe.
But, don’t forget another alternative, particularly as an iPass customer. Wi-Fi.
76% of mobile workers are using the Wi-Fi option on their smartphone/tablets
50% are using Wi-Fi all the time on their smartphone
40% of mobile workers use Wi-Fi when traveling internationally.
If it’s easy, and your users know about it, you could be saving money.
A New York Times editorial today hit on the sensitive subject of roaming. As our CEO has stated many times, “devices are cheap; it’s the networks that are expensive.” The editorial cites an OECD report (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) that was published late in 2010 discussing the expensive charges that are generally incurred for international mobile data roaming.
The most obvious issue for an enterprise is that the cost of mobility for workers can be incredibly expensive if there is no enterprise mobility strategy to deal with the roaming issue effectively.
Not only are these costs often significant, they are also very hard to account for within enterprises. Instead of falling within the IT budget, mobility costs are often hidden within expense claims — the mobility ‘black budget.’ Not only does this make it incredibly difficult for enterprises to understand their mobility costs, it also means they have very little insight into mobile working patterns and how they can best support their users going forwards. They will fall into the trap of expensive solutions for problems that are not well understood.
When I travel in Europe, my US carrier charges $20 per MB for data roaming. However, it has the desired effect of ensuring that I turn off data roaming and look for other solutions to connect and communicate. It also has the desired effect of creating a loathsome dislike for my carrier (I truly can’t wait to change carriers, once my contract expires.)
But with the second wave of Wi-Fi, I’ve also turned to using my Nimbuzz or GoogleVoice VoIP clients over Wi-Fi to talk while I’m abroad. It’s highly worth the $10 pre-payment for each one of these accounts. Luckily I also have iPass as well to overcome the data roaming issue too. But the downside for my mobile operator is that they don’t have the ability to capture the revenue when I roam, so I spend that money elsewhere. My operators also destroy any loyalty that I might have to their service offering.
The NYT editorial states: “American wireless customers roaming in other industrial nations pay about $8 to $22 per megabyte, on average. In Europe, where interconnection rates are capped, roaming is still expensive but substantially cheaper. French and British roamers pay less than $7.”
However, while I may balk at mobile operators international roaming prices I understand that it’s incredibly difficult for operators to offer deep discounts now – especially with a global bandwidth shortage.
But that’s all the more reason for telecom carriers to get into the Wi-Fi business so they can offer customers alternative options while roaming and also deal with the global bandwidth shortage.
Wi-Fi makes a lot of sense for telecom operators especially as it resolves numerous issues for their customers and their business. A few telecom operators have already announced initiatives to offer users a Wi-Fi solution when they roam too such as SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom too.
The iPass Q1 Mobile Workforce Report illustrated that 72 percent of mobile workers know how much data they consume in a month and importantly 70 percent would go on a data diet if cost became a consideration for data coverage. But it’s also the other 30 percent who have no insight into their use and costs that can create an IT nightmare especially when employers are footing the bill.
Roaming doesn’t need to be expensive especially when you have an iPass account and can take advantage of over half a million hotspots worldwide. But as more and more devices come online and the demand for connectivity keeps rising, enterprises could be caught unaware if they do not take proactive measures with their enterprise mobility strategy.
So if North American mobile operators charged less for international mobile roaming it’s very likely that more of their customers would use their service when they travel abroad and importantly stay loyal to their carrier. Especially when you consider that one-third of Europeans data roam when they travel internationally – and no doubt more will as prices may drop even further with pending EU regulations.
Today Deutsche Telekom in conjunction with iPass introduced a new service called Wi-Fi Mobilize that will help carriers address the second wave of Wi-Fi. It’s a new network service exchange for in-country and international roaming that enables carriers to meet the accelerating demand from customers for data on smartphone and tablet devices.
It’s clear now that all of the traffic engineering, spectrum licensing, femto cell-ing, and next “G” ing can’t keep up with the avalanche of data requirements unleashed by smartphones, iPad and tablets in addition to everything in the cloud revolution that has been accelerating down the track faster than anyone could have imagined three years ago.
Telecom carriers are cleverly turning to that anarchic, best effort, cheap and cheerful technology, Wi-Fi, to help them handle the demand for data. We are seeing it all over the connected world and especially here in the United States. Get an iPhone… Get religious about Wi-Fi…. Get the iPad… Get even more devout …. Get 12 Android handsets and a couple of tablets on your network and now you’re a Zealot!
Commercial Wi-Fi, free or paid, has to become a carrier offering. Why?
Because as a mobile operator:
I see hundreds of millions of devices delivered every year that don’t have, and probably never will have, anything but a Wi-Fi chipset — I want those users monetized on service from me.
I have millions of travelers who roam onto other networks and can’t handle the bill shock they have whenever they get home — shame on me — I did nothing to help them
Spectrum is expensive, build out is expensive, backhaul is expensive — if I can offload internet traffic without running it over my expensive infrastructure — that’s good news
Oh, and by the way, in many cases I already own a Wi-Fi network that is reasonably cheap to run and now I can monetize it many ways — and customers like Wi-Fi.
We are betting that Wi-Fi will be a way more integral part of tomorrow’s wireless infrastructure. We also believe that mobile operators will dominate Wi-Fi and lead in the build out, deployment and monetization of the infrastructure.
Today’s announcement is about Deutsche Telekom rolling out ‘Wi-Fi Mobilize,’ an exchange and service offering designed to help mobile operators around the world offer a global Wi-Fi service to their subscribers that can offload domestic traffic to Wi-Fi partners in their home country and pull traffic from travellers onto their own Wi-Fi networks. Deutsche Telekom can do this on the strength of their own unique assets coupled with iPass’ 518,000 hotspots around the globe and 320 Wi-Fi relationships in addition to the iPass Open Mobile technology platform that provides worldwide authentication and clearing fabric.
It is an exciting time in our industry. Cheap and cheerful is about to get very professional and we applaud Deutsche Telekom for their far reaching vision and their commitment to start the ball rolling.
Companies are trying to integrate various mobile broadband cards from different vendors into a seamless mobility solution. Not easy.
With the iPass Open Device Framework, you can integrate your 3G, and now 4G, cards into our Open Mobile Platform quite simply. We’ve integrated over 200 mobile broadband cards, but there are so many more. Don’t feel locked into a technology choice or contract.
I wanted to highlight this tutorial again by Kimi Ushida, Sr. Systems Engineer, that explains how to integrate your cards in six steps.
Our webcast with GigaOM Pro, “Examining the Post-PC Era: How Will Work and Enterprise IT Change in the New Era of Mobility” had valuable insights for Enterprise IT based on mobility and device trends. The Q&A was very interactive, covering many issues. Here’s the replay, slides and report, along with key takeaways:
Cost shifting is moving to employees. When connectivity became used for personal and business, it became less clear who pays.
Tolerance has decreased; device variability increased. Make it easy for the user.
The first person coming to IT with an iPad2 will be a C-level exec.
The iPad had less problems getting accepted because there was no incumbent. The iPhone had to displace the entrenched Blackberry.
More tidbits:
IT needs to stay a step ahead and understand these devices
CIOs need adaptability and a natural curiosity about ways to change the business
Consistent with our Mobile Workforce Report, polls during the webcast showed that most respondents had between 2-3 devices for work and if they could only pick one device, first was a smartphone, followed by tablet
A New York Times 
