With more than 120 attendees from the region joining us in Singapore, the WBA Vision Forum Asia was a very successful event!

WBA Vision Forum events focus on topics that are relevant for the region, while at the same time present a global view on developments in the unlicensed/licensed wireless ecosystem.

Co-hosted with the IMDA, and supported by Ruckus Wireless, Cisco Meraki, AntLabs and Google, 12 presentations during the one-day event discussed the current state of the ecosystem in the Asian region and global ongoing developments in the field of Connecting Cities and Connected Citizens.

Key takeaways from the event include:

  • Assistant Chief Executive IMDA Singapore Khoong Hock Yun stated that their Smart Nation plans are driven by “disruptive technologies-based innovations”.
  • StarHub CTO Mock Pak Lum presented that Data Analytics and Cyber-security services form the foundation of a smart nation.
  • Vasudevan Venkatakrishnan of Ruckus Wireless Business Unit, Brocade, outlined that future Urban Coverage will be a prime example of convergence through a combination of Public & Private hotspots, Outdoor & Indoor Access, and Collaborative / Federated Wireless system that will be supported by diverse business models.
  • Gerald Wang of IDC Asia raised the point that the top 3 investment areas for governments in IT will be focused on improvement of information accuracy and protection, automation and dynamic response to changes to drive agility and cost effective infrastructure management.
  • Tim Nagy of Cisco Meraki mentioned the fact that network connectivity is the foundation for Smart Cities and IoT, where technologies such as WLAN, Zigbee, LoRa, etc need to converge into a single integrated network, that network either routes data locally, or passes it for aggregation and analytics in the cloud.
  • Jeff Feldstein of AT&T showed that in Wi-Fi / Mobile roaming, Wi-Fi actually drives mobile data growth and displays no cannibalization of revenues.
  • David Reeder of Accuris Networks showed the need for aggregation of multiple Wi-Fi networks to deliver an optimal roaming experience and coverage for the users.
  • Mentioned multiple times, Wi-Fi calling is seen to be the biggest and most important service to users but for operators, convergence with VoLTE will be a key component of 5G.
  • The recently launched Carrier Wireless Certification Program gives operators and technology providers the ability to test end-to-end Wi-Fi services against different equipment & credentials, including roaming with real authentication.

For information on our next event, the Wireless Global Congress in London, UK, on 8-11 May, visit our event website.