This Week in Wi-Fi…
Recently it was widely reported that Marriott International had been jamming its US customers’ Wi-Fi services within the conference and meeting facilities of their hotel. While the case raised a number of interesting issues, the underlying question is one of making the business model for Wi-Fi provision stack-up for venue providers.
The situation also emphasizes the increasing demand for Wi-Fi access on-demand, anywhere, as it becomes the first and primary choice of connectivity for business and leisure travelers. High quality Wi-Fi has become a pre-requisite for hotels – as it has for all venues according to recent iPass research.
Venues are relative newcomers to the Wi-Fi space, but they must ensure that their offerings include high power security and monitoring, seamless authentication and interoperability and NGH/Passpoint™ can provide them with a solution that offers all the above plus (roaming) revenue from carrier partners.
Venues offer a whole new opportunity for the Wi-Fi space, but it is up to the value chain to ascertain how best to cooperate and monetize this opportunity. Unsurprisingly, the main struggle is still finding the appropriate business model in a market where Wi-Fi has become a bare necessity for consumers that are also expecting a ‘free ride’. On the topic of monetization models, one of the newest WBA members Purple Wi-Fi has secured funding to accelerate its rapid international expansion.
Monetization strategies remain one of the main topics on the carrier agenda but with varying established and emerging strategies, clarifying the business model is still one the main key challenges for the industry.
Purple Wi-Fi’s focus on “retail and telecoms sectors demonstrates a recognition of the value and potential for Wi-Fi in these verticals; incorporating the future of shopping, showrooming and enhancing customer experiences in-store for retail, and telecoms recognizing the need for valid data offload solutions”.
As an ongoing innovation in the Wi-Fi industry, Purple Wi-Fi is aiming to improve monetization by combining authentication, advertising, location based services and analytics. Or as Gavin Wheeldon, CEO, Purple Wi-Fi comments on their website: “Wi-Fi is something that is expected, for free, just as we expect access to heat, light and water. But the big question in recent years has been how to monetize Wi-Fi”.
Join us at our WBA Wi-Fi Global Conference in London as we continue to discuss how high-density-venue deployments are changing the Wi-Fi landscape and the impact of growing location information services, analytics and advertising in various verticals.
