From Zero to Hero – Why mobile operators are falling in love with Wi-Fi
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 Karen Ambrose Hickey, EditorNew research from WBAlliance (carried out by Informa) shows that almost half (47%) of mobile operators now think Wi-Fi is either very important or essential to their customers’ experience.
The research also found that operators are planning a massive increase in Wi-Fi hotspot deployments – hotspots are set to rocket by 350% increase by 2015. Why the sudden love for Wi-Fi?
The report shows that mobile data is set to continue its massive rise with the latest prediction that it will hit 16.84 million terabytes by 2014. Mobile operators are now realising that their own networks cannot handle this load unassisted hence their new found dependence on Wi-Fi.
Other interesting stats from the survey:
- Top three barriers to wider adoption and usage of Wi-Fi among end users are authentication, access costs and network discovery
- Smartphone connections to hotspots will soon overtake laptops worldwide
- Seamless connections to Hotspots and availability of common standards, and enhanced security and privacy measures are deemed the highest sources of competitive differentiation for Wi-Fi operators.
Read more in the WBA Industry Report 2011: Global Developments in Public Wi-Fi
Tags: carriers, wi-fi access
