Day 1 at WBA: Mobile data is the challenge; Wi-Fi is the answer
Friday, November 11th, 2011 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
The session was opened with a Introduction from Chris Bruce, CEO of BTOpenZone. He introduced the new message that the WBA’s Mission is to be a customer-focused, operator-led industry organization driving the next generation Wi-Fi experience.
There are now 71 members of the WBA with 26 just added this year. The diversity of the WBA eco-system includes Mobile Operators, Wi-Fi, Fixed line and other leading vendors and service partners. New members include BSG, Docomo, Juniper, SK Telecom, Trustive, Telia Sonera, US Signal, Sky and China Telecom.
Chris spoke about the explosive growth in mobile data traffic driving WiFi (his video about the report is below) and that public Wi-Fi hotspot numbers are increasing. There are new markets emerging as a land grab happens for key venues, like hotels and stadiums. In established markets there is increasing network density in places like retail outlets, outdoor hotzones and the phenomena of “flash crowds”.
The Olympic Park in London has 9 venues on the same park Wi-Fi, having had no coverage before and expecting 250k people to be using Wi-Fi. What will happen when an athelete wins and everyone wants to take a picture and upload it at the same time? No one is certain!
There is the challenge of Mobile Data. For MBOs, it’s traffic volume on home networks; for end users, it’s bill shock when roaming. Today, Operators are seeing Wi-Fi as part of the solution. The recently released Industry Report on Global Developments in Wi-Fi from the WBA highlights the key trends. Wi-Fi hotspot deployment is set to rise 350% by 2015 which will bring about an enhanced customer experience, offload busy networks and provided valued added services.
The rise of mobile data is driving deployment activity; global traffic will rise to 16.84 terra bytes by 2014, smartphones are overtaking laptops and there are serveral barriers to address such as access points and security. The WBA intitiative behind Next Generation Hotspots and seamless roaming allows operators to bundle access within broadband cellular packages.
Operators are embracing Wi-Fi for 5 reasons; the “5 C’s”: capacity, coverage, cost effectiveness, competitive edge and it’s complimentary. The WBA, WFA and GSMA are now collaborating to address the user experience challenge that exists today with Wi-Fi.
I will report back from the bottom of the 45 meter The Flyer which I will not be on!..Singapore has a thing of open air transports..:)
Here’s a look at Chris Bruce’s video on the report:
Tags: carriers, WBA, wi-fi access
