Tuesday, May 15th, 2012
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
FierceWireless reported today Sprint gets top marks in annual customer satisfaction survey for US carriers.
Yes, Sprint has edged to the top of a slim margin in the rankings, but overall, the rankings have fallen, according to a new report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
A managing director from ACSI noted: “The big customer satisfaction challenge for wireless carriers remains how to keep up with rapid growth as more customers adopt cell phone services, and especially as the smartphone market and its bandwidth-eating data plans expands, while at the same time improving the reliability of service.”
Read more >>
Carrier customer survey – drop overall >>
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
We believe in Wi-Fi and the role that it plays in the global mobility market – as the only truly global network.
As part of that strategy and to support the need for roaming across that global network, iPass has joined the Wi-Fi Alliance to participate in development of the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Passpoint program that aims to improve the end-user experience in Wi-Fi hotspots. The company also announced its support for the complementary Wireless Broadband Alliance, Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) effort that together with the Passpoint program will simplify Wi-Fi hotspot access.
To aid the adoption of next generation Wi-Fi as a global service, we published a new whitepaper:
>> A Carrier Roadmap for Monetizing Next Generation Wi-Fi
This paper outlines how NGH is likely to develop and how telecom operators should think about the evolution of Wi-Fi networks to improve subscriber satisfaction, reduce the churn rate of their premium subscribers and maximize their roaming revenues.
From the press release:
““iPass strongly believes that Wi-Fi will be the only truly global network and roaming will be an essential part of the experience. NGH and Passpoint are critical to remove the friction inherent in the connection process today and enable a much improved user experience.” Marcio Avillez, VP of Network Services.
“The emergence of the NGH initiative and the Passpoint program will very importantly remove friction from the user’s Wi-Fi experience. iPass enterprise and telecom service provider customers will benefit from these improvements as our services will be better able to determine appropriate networks based on the customer’s required policy decisions while maintaining the visibility and reporting customers require in today’s data hungry and security conscious world.” Barbara Nelson, CTO
Role of Wi-Fi as global network [whitepaper] >>
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Last week, Light Reading had an event called Strategic Opportunities in Service Provider Wi-Fi at the Landmark Hotel in London.
The event was well attended by many of the major UK Service Providers including several of iPass’ network partners such as BT, The Cloud (owned by BSKYB), Everything Everywhere, eircom and Boingo. Other significant attendees included FON, O2, Talk Talk and Virgin Media. The events sponsors were Cisco (Super Platinum), Ericsson, Ruckus and AnyFi (Gold).
Key themes of the conference were:
- Lessons learned
- Different approaches by Service Providers in offering Wi-Fi
- Different drivers for investing in Wi-Fi – customer retention, customer acquisition, revenue, 3G offload
- Industry initiatives – WBA NGH pjt
Key points from the presentations:
- Cisco: Lessons learned from Service Providers – efficiencies in installing APs in macro environments, drivers (growth in mobile data, lack of spectrum, attractiveness of economics in offload)
- BT: Wi-Fi is seen a strategic asset, included in its broadband customers’ service; content is the future; consumption largely indoors and part of a heterogeneous solution and an integrated data network; Wi-Fi is important because of the capacity crunch, customer experience, cost effectiveness and extended coverage
- Wireless 20/20 (consultancy looking at the economics of Wi-Fi vs LTE): interesting model for London revealing that 40% of London covered is the optimum amount for cost saving vs. rolling out an LTE network, 6-7% saving or $80-100M
- O2: noted iPhone was the game changer; entered the industry to get the experience it wanted to deliver as an alternative to working through wholesale partners; provides completely open and free access to ALL users; providing value to the venue and quality of service are extremely important
- eircom: re-investing in Wi-Fi following initial investment and recognizes there is a ways to go still; customer acquisition and retention are drivers as well as revenue but this is moving the needle much less; for non-eircom subscribers it offers 10 minutes free, then you can purchase access for the rest of the day for €1
- FON: see Wi-Fi as complimentary to 3G/4G and a best efforts service, but this must change. ~15% of user base are active albeit the percentage varies from country to country, where it sells devices – then virtually 100% of users are active
Light Reading’s Strategic Opportunities in Service Provider Wi-Fi >>
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Today we announced a deal with the largest telecommunication company in Brazil, Oi, a pioneer company in the provision of bundled services in Brazil. It’s a great offering that Oi has put forward that will enable their eligible customers to roam globally on the iPass Mobile Network using the iPass Open Mobile Exchange. This follows recent announcements from Zain Telecom in the Middle East, China Telecom and China Mobile all using iPass to better serve their customers.
Oi customers that travel internationally will be able to connect to over 779 thousand hotspots around the globe – and that number is constantly growing. The beauty of this for Oi customers will be the simple access that they will have wherever they travel. There will be no need to whip out credit cards, user names and login details for global Wi-Fi access. It will just be simple access to Wi-Fi when they travel with the customer paying on their bill at the end of the month.
From the press release:
“Our goal in partnering with iPass is to offer both Oi eligible customers and Oi WiFi Vex customers greater value and cost savings internationally, to reinforce our commitment of offering the best ‘Internet Everywhere’ experience,” said Eduardo Aspesi, Oi Retail Director. “Oi WiFi network was launched in 2011 to strengthen the position of the company as the largest and more complete provider of Internet access in Brazil. The partnership with iPass is very important for Oi, because it broadens the service offering to an additional 780 000 hotspots in several countries,” added Aspesi.
Oi [Brazil] offers International Wi-Fi Data Roaming Services via iPass >>
Monday, March 26th, 2012
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
I wanted to share this article in which Marcio Avillez, Vice President of Network Services, gives clarity to the current industry discussion on Wi-Fi roaming. As the article title says, there are many opportunities and challenges, however, our work with the GSMA and WBA Alliance is geared towards solving these issues.
Mobile to WiFi roaming – threats and opportunities (Mobile Europe)
With so many devices now emerging with embedded Wi-Fi and the proliferation of apps and video, consumers have been underserved. The GSMA/WBAlliance announcement on their roaming initiative provides an easier, more secure experience for the end user.
“As for how mobile operators will benefit, [members] agree that the core initial use case will be for domestic data offload – attaching mobile users automatically to available WiFi networks with any billing or charging aspects taken care of in the background.”
Marcio also added: “The challenge on the mobile operator side is how to take that technology solution and take it to market. A lot has been written about taking the friction out of WiFi authentication but, of course, sometimes having friction is a good thing. I think operators need to be able to provide the seamless experience where it makes sense – as in domestic data offload – but there are use cases where you would want to make the user more aware of what’s going on.”
The article continues: “That includes international roaming, of course, but also a use case such as where a customer has a WiFi subscription as part of his fixed line home broadband deal, but also has a separate contract with a mobile operator who may be attaching the subscriber automatically to its preferred networks. Does the user, the fixed line provider, or the mobile operator decide which networks to attach to, and when? Or do the fixed line and mobile provider take care of that in a separate commercial relationship.”
For more details on what needs to be done, read the article.
Read the recent GSMA/WBAlliance press release: GSMA And WBA Collaborate to Simplify Wi-fi Hotspot Access for Smartphones and Tablets
Mobile to Wi-Fi roaming: focus on the user >>
