Monetization – how do you make revenue from something that end-users want and expect for free? You have to be smart and think laterally. This was a key theme running through today’s presentations at Wi-Fi Global Congress.
The morning session started with AT&T’s Bill Hague speaking on how to develop roaming partners and mutually beneficial roaming agreements. It is a busy time for AT&T, with its 32,000 hotspots throughout the USA and 12 million broadband subscribers across the country – in terms of Wi-Fi, AT&T has seen connections more than double from 1.2 billion in 2011 to 2.7 billion in 2012. AT&T is adding 40,000 small cells to its network in the next couple of years to help offload heavy traffic usage in busy areas. Wi-Fi is an essential complement to that mobile network said Bill, and should be affordable.
AT&T’s commitment to expanding global Wi-Fi roaming is evidenced by its agreements in 30 to 40 countries and total of around 600 roaming agreements – roughly as many as there are mobile carriers in the world. Roaming standards are vital to monetization and helping accelerate growth across the industry, letting operators create new opportunities and new revenues. The WBA and GSMA will play a key role in assisting this future development of Wi-Fi.
Why is roaming important?
Alex Sinclair of the GSMA was next to speak, outlining the significance of roaming in today’s market; over the past two decades roaming has become an important business in its own right, being worth around €4.8 billion per annum. So why is cellular Wi-Fi roaming so important? Because Wi-Fi is nearly everywhere and cellular is nearly everywhere else.
Alex pointed out that customers are driving the demand for data everywhere by owning more devices than ever. But the equation isn’t just about volume and capacity any longer; it’s about Quality of Experience (QoE). As Alex summed up, “The customer should be Always Best Connected – and the WBA and GSMA are working together to deliver on this vision”.
Seamless connections
Wireless Broadband Alliance CEO Shrikant Shenwai hosted a panel session on seamless connectivity, discussed by the GSMA’s Alex Sinclair, Edgar Figueroa of the Wi-Fi Alliance and Graham Wright, CEO of the Small Cell Forum.
As Shrikant pointed out, the relationship between mobile and Wi-Fi has grown closer over time, with the massive Data Tsunami throwing them together as co-operative bedfellows. Graham Wright emphasized this by stating that the Small Cell Forum sees “the relationship as extremely intimate. We really appreciate what WBA has done in bringing this tech forward.”
In terms of Wi-Fi and small cells powering this seamless connectivity, Graham pointed out that “There’s no nirvana on the horizon – it’s about aggregating spectrum and getting these devices aggregating themselves into systems for seamless operation. That’s the long-term goal for where we’re going. And how you get there is critical.”
“So what is still lacking?” asked Shrikant. Alex pointed out that “Sometimes we’re too busy competing with one another that we forget to sort out the basic connectivity problems”, while Graham contented that “It’s all about creating the capacity that we need. From an operator perspective, they’re looking for secure roaming, and ultimately carrier grade scalability.”
Hotspot 3.0
This was one of the future industry developments put forward by Alcatel-Lucent’s Phil Tilley, on the subject of the evolution of Wi-Fi infrastructure and architecture. With users demanding more access in more ways over more and more devices, the emphasis is on the industry to deliver the backbone that supports these expectations. Today’s user is smarter and more discerning, so ensuring architecture and infrastructure stay ahead of the curve is now more important than ever.
Everyone expecting everything everywhere
Leveraging Wi-Fi within 4G was the subject of Graham Cove’s presentation, with the Everything Everywhere director outlining again that customers are more demanding than ever. There are many ways to monetize Wi-Fi under a 4G umbrella, from bundling Wi-Fi access in cellular and broadband packages to offering it on a managed service basis – but operators need to think laterally.
The morning session concluded with a panel session on a similar theme with Graham Cove, Mobitel’s Rasantha Hettithanthrige and Ramon Pelaez of GOWEX joining IBB Consulting’s Hillol Roy to discuss differing routes to monetization. One of the key findings was that location-basing is going to be increasingly important in making money; coupons and targeted offers aimed at end-users because you know where they are can be key to revenue generation over Wi-Fi.
