Now that everyone has had time to digest another record breaking Mobile World Congress, it is time to reflect on the events from last week and the huge success of the show’s inaugural Wi-Fi Zone, hosted by the WBA. Located in Hall 8.1, the Wi-Fi Zone was abuzz with mobile enthusiasts from day 1 and securing a spot between Intel and the Apps Lounge was a definite bonus for the WBA!

The WBA team prepared itself for a week of over 30 excellent presentations and panel sessions from members, partners and analysts. The Zone was set to be the place where you could listen to industry leaders from all parts of the ecosystem discussing current hot topics such as Next Generation Hotpot, Seamless Wi-Fi Roaming, Carrier Wi-Fi and Mobile Data Offload.

A summary of each day is as follows:

Monday 25 – The WBA’s Cedric Gonin kicked off proceedings with a case study from Orange focusing on Wi-Fi Offload challenges shortly followed by Brian Metzger from iPass and John Smith from Cisco. In the afternoon, the ‘Meet-the-Analysts’ panel gave those attending the opportunity to quiz leading industry experts including Ken Rehbehn (Yankee Group), Peter Jarich (Current Analysis) and Thomas Wehmeier (Informa Telecoms & Media), on their opinions about all things Wi-Fi. It was standing room only at the Zone and the session addressed a number of issues including the benefits of monetizing Wi-Fi and how LTE will impact the usage of public Wi-Fi. We were very pleased to see a number of attendees from the journalist community at this session.

Also in the afternoon, WBA Co-Chair Chris Bruce from BT provided a fascinating insight into the huge undertaking of supplying Wi-Fi at the London Olympics 2012. Next up was Ramón Peláez from Gowex, a Spanish operator making big waves in the Wi-Fi Community. He presented some interesting stats including that peak hours of Wi-Fi usage is 7-8pm during first few days of the week. There were some thought-provoking takeaways from Day one including how current developments in Wi-Fi roaming will benefit the mobile community, addressed by Betty Cockrell from BSG Wireless who is also project lead of the WBA’s Interoperability Compliancy Program (ICP). To round off the day, Atsuhisa Shirai from NTT DoCoMo spoke about the work they are carrying out with China Mobile and KT as part of the Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) Program.

Tuesday 26 – Today’s highlight had to be the ‘Meet-the-Partners’ session featuring the GSMA, Small Cell Forum and CableLabs, all speaking about the work they were carrying out in partnership with the WBA. To kick off this session, Caroline Gabriel from Maravedis Rethink presented her views on integrating carrier Wi-Fi into the HetNet to a large audience who stopped to listen in. She presented some interesting research from her firm stating that 35% of operators expect to have Wi-Fi/cellular integrated small cells by 2017.

Earlier in the morning, the Wi-Fi Zone sponsors took to the stand to give operator and vendor insight to the issue of Wi-Fi Offload including Alex Puregger from FON, Jason Khaw from Green Packet and Frederick Harris from Aruba Networks. Following his participation in the earlier panel, Bernie McKibben from CableLabs discussed the importance of providing a secure, seamless and interoperable NGH experience and Necati Canpolat from Intel continued this train of thought focusing on mobile devices and Wi-Fi offloading. Another highlight for the WBA was Chairman JR Wilson being asked to present in the main auditorium of Mobile World Congress where he spoke about how Wi-Fi & Small Cells will work together.

Wednesday 27 – Day 3’s jam-packed schedule started with the daily Wi-Fi Offload seminar featuring a very impressive line up of Hui Deng from China Mobile, Bjorn Thorngren from Boingo Wireless, John Smith from Cisco and David Reeder from Accuris Networks. John Smith also presented later in the day during the NGH and Carrier Wi-Fi session. As part of this session, Joe Madden from Mobile Experts delivered his new Carrier Wi-Fi forecast which gave a comprehensive view of how Carrier Wi-Fi will function alongside Small Cells and Macrocells. Robert Duncan from TNS closed off this session with a very charismatic presentation on the monetization Wi-Fi Networks, stating how Wi-Fi can deliver a significant cost reduction as MNO’s pay $3/GB in existing, in-network costs and far more in domestic/international roaming costs. This session inspired some excellent questions from the audience including one attendee questioning whether Wi-Fi really is ready to be ‘carrier grade’ when it seemed to not function as well as expected at the event. Robert was straight to Wi-Fi’s defense stating that, yes the Wi-Fi has been spotty but without it, the situation would be ten times worse. The resounding sound bite for the day was the question: what exactly is ‘Carrier Wi-Fi’ and how do we define it?

Thursday 28 – The highlight of Day 4 had to be the WBA’s Program Director, Tiago Rodrigues, giving a great presentation on the Small Cell Zone where he spoke about driving the Next Generation Wi-Fi experience through the integration of Small Cell and Wi-Fi technology. A great way to round off a very successful MWC!

If you enjoyed what the Wi-Fi Zone had to offer, come and join us in London for the WBA Wi-Fi Global Congress in June where you will have the opportunity to network with member and non-member executives and experts from around the world who are driving innovation in the global Wi-Fi ecosystem. For more details on this event, please visit: http://www.wifiglobalcongress.com