Thursday heralded Day 2 of the WBA‘s Carrier Wi-Fi Summit presentation program that was attended over 250 visitors! The Alliance’s Chairman JR Wilson delivered the opening address where he gave an update on the progress that has been made with NGH. The technology is now a commercial reality with hotspots being deployed by the likes of KT, China Mobile and Boingo, as well as the NGH Live Experience happening at the event.
Alex Sinclair, the CTO of the GSMA, followed this by giving an overview of the work the GSMA and WBA have been doing together since 2011. He also delved in to the topic of a ‘Connected Society’ and what is needed to make this commonplace. The economic and social benefits of a connected society are clear and Wi-Fi, as well as cellular, are key enablers of this.
This led on to the first panel discussion of the day focusing on the Social Benefits Delivered by Wireless Technologies involving Brooke Partridge (Vital Wave Consulting), Alex Sinclair (GSMA), Gordon Mansfield (Small Cell Forum), Kelly Davis-Felner (Wi-Fi Alliance) and WBA CEO Shrikant Shenwai. Brooke provided real world examples of how wireless technology has created benefits to emerging markets such as Indonesia and India. Gordon highlighted that user experience is key! There has been much talk around the different technologies available, but the reality is that the user only really cares about their experience of getting connected. This session provided an exciting insight into how numerous associations are committed to improving Wi-Fi technology and better standards will ultimately make it cheaper and easier for the end user.
The panel that followed focused on the Evolution of Wi-Fi Networks and Business Models involving Bill Hague (AT&T), Kelly Ahuja (Cisco), Tom Nagel (Comcast) and Greg Oliveau (GoGo Inflight). Bill focused on how Wi-Fi has been reinvented, particularly as Hotspot 2.0 is now deployed on a grand scale and is seamless and secure. Wi-Fi has been on a journey, once perceived by some as a competitive threat or offload strategy, it is now a crucial part of enabling a high quality broadband experience, whilst also increasing capacity and coverage. Kelly Ahuja praised the industry for coming together to make Wi-Fi relevant to the mobile industry. He elaborated on the usage patterns from the network deployed at MWC 2014 stating that on the Wednesday, there were 430,000 connected devices, 64 TB of data was exchanged and there were 20,000 active concurrent sessions at any one site. Fascinating stuff!
Tom Nagel discussed why Wi-Fi has become an important consideration for cable operators. As cellar costs climb, Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly attractive for consumers and it in turn drives churn reduction and higher customer engagement. Greg Oliveau gave an insightful presentation on Wi-Fi in the air focusing on how, in the coming 5-10 years, Wi-Fi on aeroplanes will be as common as having water on board. He also divulged that most users connected to the GoGo in-air portal via a tablet (34%), followed by mobiles and laptops (both at 26%).
The afternoon kicked off with Monica Paolini (Senza Fili Consulting) discussing what Wi-Fi trends and user experience will look like in the future. Derek Peterson (Boingo Wireless) discussed his organization’s NGH / Passpoint Deployment at Chicago O´Hare launched last year. Boingo has upgraded 100s of APs and controllers to Passpoint in order to support Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) roll outs and has announced the launch of a further 21 NGH deployments in airports across the US.
Evan Kaplan (iPass) followed this by giving his predictions on the future of Wi-Fi which he believes will become the ‘Lingua Franca’ of the connected world and you won’t be able to stay competitive without it. Cellular will fill the gaps for Wi-Fi (not the other way round). WBA Co-Chair Chris Bruce (BT) and Mark Carter (BSG Wireless) later joined the panel discussion to give their take on what the future holds for Carrier Wi-Fi.
Chris Bruce closed the day’s proceedings by thanking all attendees, sponsors and the presentation program participants, as well as reminding the audience that the next WBA Wi-Fi Global Congress will return to San Francisco on November 7th – 10th later in the year. Hopefully we will see you there!
