Wi-Fi deployments to grow globally, despite 3G and 4G / LTE

Telecom Lead India: Despite the deployment of 3G and 4G mobile data services globally, the number of Wi-Fi Hotspots will surpass 6.3 million this year.

ABI Research says worldwide carrier Wi-Fi deployments reached a total 4.9 million hotspots in 2012.

iPass on Monday said Zain Jordan, a subsidiary of Zain Group with more than 44 million individual and business customers, has chosen iPass Open Mobile Exchange (OMX) to provide global Wi-Fi access to its international travelers.

More than 162 million tablets will be shipped in 2013, of which around three-quarters (74 percent) are expected to ship with Wi-Fi as the only form of connectivity, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

Meanwhile, SNS Research says infrastructure spending on HetNet (Heterogeneous Network) technologies which include small cells, carrier Wi-Fi, Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) and Cloud RAN is expected to reach $42 Billion by 2020.

Driven by in-building wireless coverage requirements and the growing influx of mobile broadband data traffic, a traditional macrocell based cellular network deployment is not deemed to be a sufficient solution to address the coverage and capacity needs of today’s wireless subscribers.

Wireless carriers are exploring options to offload additional coverage and capacity to alternatives such as strategically deployed small cells and Wi-Fi access points, which have so far been deployed by more than 150 global wireless carriers.

Elitecore Technologies, a provider of Wi-Fi Service Management Platform, recently announced its support for Hospitality Wi-Fi business model for service providers, offering a centralized bundled solution with Wi-Fi access infrastructure and internet connectivity on a managed services platform.

Apart from hospitality, the Elitecore Wi-Fi SMP solution enables operators cater to different business models such as Enterprise, Residential, Mobile Data Offload, Inter-carrier wholesale, Hotspot and Location aware services.

The carrier Wi-Fi equipment market will reach $3.9 billion by 2017, primarily driven by mobile operators deploying carrier Wi-Fi for data offload.

“The carrier Wi-Fi space is red hot right now, driven by the explosion in demand from mobile operators using Wi-Fi to augment their 3G/4G deployments and offload a portion of mobile data traffic to unlicensed spectrum,” said Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and carrier WiFi at Infonetics Research.

ABI Research says Wi-Fi has become a complement to 3G and 4G services and is a mainstay of connectivity for the majority of smartphone, tablet, and laptop users because it is often free in many public Wi-Fi locations.

This is particularly the case when a mobile user is roaming – Wi-Fi networks can help the user save a significant amount on mobile data roaming charges.

A recent iPass survey on international data roaming revealed that 98 percent of respondents own at least one smartphone and over one-third travel with two or more.

In addition to mobile and fixed carriers, third-party Wi-Fi network operators (such as iPass, Boingo and Tomizone) are also expanding their Wi-Fi hotspot coverage.

Third-party operators install their own Wi-Fi hotspots as well as retail access to Wi-Fi hotspots managed by telecom operators. Of the total global Wi-Fi hotspots, 88 percent of Wi-Fi is in Asia-Pacific, followed by 8 percent in Europe, 3 percent in North America, and 1 percent in the other regions.

picture source: zowchow.com

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