Aug 10
20105 reasons why WiFi and WLAN are the Alternative Mobile NetworksView Comments
In a recent survey, MarketTools states that seventy eight percent of people in the USA who own smartphones with Wi-Fi capabilities would be interested in an application that would use Wi-Fi to deliver ‘five bars’ of coverage at home or in the office. Though the sample group was not exactly huge, the received wisdom underlines several key trends in the mobile industry:
1. Every smart device has WiFi. According to research from InStat, the next four years will see an increase in the number of Wi-Fi-enabled devices to nearly 2 billion by 2014. This includes mobile phones, laptops, Blu-ray players/recorders, e-readers, and digital televisions. The Internet of Things will be WiFi enabled.
2. Mobile Operators are already using WiFi to alleviate data bottlenecks on the network. In the USA, AT&T handled 68.1 million Wi-Fi connections on its network in the second quarter of 2010, compared to just 15 million in the same quarter last year. The AT&T WiFi hotzone pilot project has been building out trial municipal WiFi in North Carolina and will go live in Chicago on a few months time.
In the UK, a YouGov survey found that 50% of UK smartphone owners use WiFi every day – 40% of them because its faster for mobile internet access, and 50% because it is easier than using 3G. Most notably for Morodo, 80% would be interested in a mobile operator service that offers cheap calls through WiFi.
3. 4G is a long time coming. Wimax and LTE are much talked about high speed mobile technologies but they will be a long time coming to the mass market. As the Intelligence Centre points out, GSM provides better overall coverage globally. Mobile Network operators should leverage existing low-cost technologies, such as WiFi, to provide better data services in metropolitan usage hotspots.
4. The future is data – Western mobile markets are reaching 100% population penetration. New data services are the new revenue streams and cash-cows for Mobile Network Operators. VoIP is a data service. Browsing is a data service. Streaming and downloading are data services. Navigation is a data service. Pretty much everything the customer wants to do with their powerful mobile phone relies on a data service.
5. Wireless Local Area Networks are a growth business. Market researchers Dell’Oro Group say that overall Wireless LAN (WLAN) market revenues are expected to surpass $7 billion by 2014. The enterprise segment and the small office, home office segments will account for a majority of that growth, with enterprise revenues expected to expand more than 100 percent over 2009.
In summary, the Morodo Team predicts that WiFi enabled devices will drive data service usage for some time to come. This is great for us: WiFi is cheap to deploy, proven technology that works with Morodo’s voice and data services today. It’s also great for you: WiFi knows no borders and unlike roaming with your mobile, is cheap to use when you travel, often free. The vast majority of VoIP MO-Calls originate over a WiFi network and we believe this will continue to be the case in the future. You can rest assured that we will be leveraging the abundance of WiFi for some years yet.
