Wi-Fi as an offering for carriers – webinar replay and whitepaper

Thursday, August 4th, 2011 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

Did you miss the webinar? Here’s another chance.

Turning Wi-Fi into a Viable Extension of Your Mobile Broadband Offering

Dean Bubley, Founder, Disruptive Analysis and author of Disruptive Wireless blog is joined by iPass’ Marcio Avilez, Vice President of Network Services, discussing the transition from a mobile voice to a mobile data business model, causing service providers to explore options and best practices to complement their cellular infrastructure with Wi-Fi.

Some discussion points:

• Not all Smartphone Wi-Fi is offload
• Wi-Fi onloading is starting to happen to attract customers
• Carrier Wi-Fi needs to “play nicely” with private Wi-Fi
• Of those that attended 32% were planning to build a Wi-Fi infrastructure, 18% operate a Wi-Fi network and 23% are exploring partnerships for offload/roaming.
• If consumers expect free Wi-Fi, then how can carriers monetize? (from the Q&A)

Also available is a whitepaper by Dean, called: Carrier WiFi Opportunities: Enabling offload, onload and roaming.

Successful adoption of WiFi by mobile operators demands careful consideration of technical architecture, a good appreciation of real-world user interaction, and partnering with suppliers that understand Wi-Fi’s subtle nuances and likely future trends. This paper examines the trends and options for operator WiFi, highlighting both new business models and avoidable pitfalls.

See the webinar., and also learn more about the iPass OMX service for carriers.

Tags: 3G network, 4G network, carriers, mobile employee, wi-fi access