By Dan Warren, Senior Director of Technology, GSMA
Wi-Fi and Cellular are competing technologies, right? To be honest, I’m not sure anyone believes that anymore and even a cursory glance at this month’s selection of news articles illustrates this point nicely. Wi-Fi Offload allows customers to get better connectivity and operators to better manage their network load. In 2013, 66% of data on mobile devices was handled on Wi-Fi so it is perhaps unsurprising to see that cellular operators are investing heavily in Wi-Fi themselves. The more disruptive approach of Republic Wireless where ‘Wi-Fi first’ is the mantra, even for voice calls, continues to stimulate interest.
All of this points to the importance of access to data connections, which in turn is driving investment in and deployment of Wi-Fi in places where it has not previously gone. One such market is Africa where Wi-Fi offload is a relatively new phenomenon, but expectation of service uptake in 2014 is high. Equally, some of the best practise from cellular is being transposed into Wi-Fi service, with Telefonica now offering Wi-Fi service in 110 countries as well as on commercial aircraft through roaming partnerships with Swisscom, iPass and GoGo. The fact that Fon can pull in partners like Qualcomm and Facebook, serves to show that the opportunity presented by widespread Wi-Fi coverage is seen by all players in the industry.
With increasing penetration and coverage, Wi-Fi can play a major role in the Internet of Things, again as a natural partner to cellular. GSMA’s Connected City at Mobile World Congress, towards the end of February will include a wide array of wireless connectivity options for all manner of Internet of Things services and with cellular and Wi-Fi alongside each other – perhaps the final illustration if one were needed, that wireless technologies will need to work in combination to address all opportunities in the future.
