Wi-Fi calling can reduce costs and deliver a universal mobile communications service to consumers worldwide
London, 29 June 2016 – The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has today published its latest whitepaper, outlining the opportunities Wi-Fi calling presents for mobile operators, mobile broadband service providers and consumers. The paper discusses the significant role Wi-Fi calling can play in addressing industry issues such as coverage, as well as highlights the gaps in the market to help promote the deployment, use and growing momentum of Wi-Fi calling.
Wi-Fi calling is going mainstream globally, creating a wide range of opportunities that were previously not commercially viable or technically possible. While 80% of voice calls take place indoors, poor indoor cellular coverage is cited as the top complaint by customers. The rise in technologies that use unlicensed spectrum for mobile communications is unleashing exciting opportunities for operators. Wi-Fi calling can offer coverage extension when cellular network signals cannot reach the customer, indoors and elsewhere. It can also act more efficiently than its more expensive counterpoints, like small cells and DAS, to deliver a ‘Universal Wireless Service’ to consumers that have access to Wi-Fi networks.
“Interest in Wi-Fi calling is rapidly growing due to changing market dynamics, customer expectations and VoLTE deployment. It’s increasingly becoming clear that it is no longer a case of if operators will deploy Wi-Fi calling, it’s a matter of when,” said Shrikant Shenwai, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance. “There is therefore an enormous opportunity for mobile operators to capitalize on hundreds of millions of readily available Wi-Fi Access Points to offer Wi-Fi calling service and to provide the coverage that customers increasingly expect. With our expertise and experience, we want to help create best practices and ultimately drive the next wireless experience for people all around the world.”
The key business drivers and market opportunities Wi-Fi calling presents include:
- Wi-Fi calling offers huge CapEx and OpEx savings and is a customer retention tool for mobile operators
- VoWi-Fi will be a key component of 5G to deliver converged services over any access networks
- Wi-Fi calling enables Multiple System Operators (MSOs) to leverage Wi-Fi networks to offer their wireless services
- VoWi-Fi complements VoLTE as it uses the same IMS core and reuses VoLTE investment and devices
The WBA will be initiating the development of an end-to-end Wi-Fi calling specification, as well as standards, certification and trials for the industry, to enable operators to deliver a scalable, reliable and standard-based solution. This will help to significantly improve Wi-Fi calling enablement and usage, as well as help to bring VoWiFi to the same equivalency as VoLTE.
The full white paper, entitled ‘Wi-Fi Calling: Opportunities and Challenges towards 5G’, is available to download here.
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About the Wireless Broadband Alliance
Founded in 2003, the mission of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) is to champion the development of the converged wireless broadband ecosystem through seamless, secure and interoperable unlicensed wireless broadband services for delivering outstanding user experience. Building on our heritage of NGH and carrier Wi-Fi, WBA will continue to drive and support the adoption of Next Generation Wi-Fi services need coexistence and convergence of unlicensed and licensed networks across the entire public Wi-Fi ecosystem, including IoT, Big Data, Converged Services, Smart Cities, 5G, etc. Today, membership includes major fixed operators such as BT, Comcast and Time Warner Cable; seven of the top 10 mobile operator groups (by revenue) and leading technology companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, Huawei Technologies, Google and Intel. WBA member operators collectively serve more than 2 billion subscribers and operate more than 30 million hotspots globally.
The WBA Board includes AT&T, Boingo Wireless, BT, China Telecom, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Intel, KT Corporation, Liberty Global, NTT DOCOMO, Orange and Ruckus Wireless. For a complete list of current WBA members, please click here.
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