Day 2 of our Wi-Fi Global Congress was another full and busy day for all attendees. The presentations were begun with GSM Association’s Anne Bouverot, Director General, and followed by China Mobile, Time Warner, Ericsson and a Panel discussion about how Wi-Fi could shape mobile broadband networks and mobile business models with Moderator, Mohan Gyani the former CEO of AT&T Mobility.
The GSM Association presentation was very engaging as Ms. Bouverot talked about their view of the merger of The Connected Life, having everything on your smartphone, and The Digital Life, digitizing everything. The prediction is that there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2020 encompassing all different types of devices. She emphasized GSMA’s commitment to the creation of a seamless experience for the consumer which also helps carriers manage mobile traffic more effectively. The presentation ended with her welcoming the WBA and GSMA collaboration to simplify connections from Wi-Fi hotpots to mobile devices. China Mobile gave a more technical talk about Wi-Fi in Asia and their strategy to have 2G/3G/4G and Wi-Fi co-existing. The stat that underscored Wi-Fi was their deployment of 6 million hotspots by 2015! Both Time Warner and Ericsson took the audience through their Wi-Fi strategies and priorities as well as some deployments that showcased their commitment to providing Wi-Fi everywhere. In particular Ericsson gave insight into a study that showed that 90% of respondents said they were interested in operators offering Wi-Fi in public spaces as a compliment to their service and Tim Warner pointed to the fact that they were seeing greater customer loyalty with customers who were using both their Wi-Fi and broadband services.
The main takeaway from today was a message that came across through almost every discussion and presentation; that Wi-Fi is an integral part of any heterogeneous network solution.
The main evening event that everyone was looking forward to was WBA’s first Wi-Fi Industry Awards 2012. Winners will be announced tonight and posted in our Day 3 blog.
