New roaming standards to fuel growth in carrier Wi-Fi

According to a report released Wednesday by the Wireless Broadband Alliance, major mobile operators around the world say they expect to rely on Wi- Fi in the next few years to keep their data networks free from congestion. This means that carriers will move mobile traffic from their traditional networks onto Wi-Fi networks. And new standards that will make it easier for operators' subscribers to use each other's Wi-Fi networks will help accelerate Wi-Fi offload adoption.

"The key challenges for mobile networks are capacity and coverage, says Kian Ellens, Cisco Systems' business development manager for mobility solutions across the Middle East and Africa. "The difficulty is that, whereas most coverage is outdoors, most consumption is indoors, hence the focus on small cells and now on Wi-Fi offload. The underlying challenge is that it must be carrier class Wi-Fi - good enough for a mobile network to provide quality voice. A lot of work is happening around how do we deliver carrier class experience, as well as on authentication mechanisms to make the hand-over seamless. Already, in some markets we are seeing reduction in churn because subscribers can switch to their home Wi-Fi connection."

One of the new standards for Wi-Fi offloading developed by the global Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA), is called Passpoint, also known as Hotspot 2.0. It is designed for both signal switching and more flexible content delivery and authentication procedures. It enables users to roam between networks seamlessly. Formerly, such travelers would have to re-authenticate when they moved. The WFA has certified more than 75 products for Passpoint. Wireless Broadband Alliance says that tier one mobile operators believe that 22 percent of their capacity will be provided by Wi-Fi this year and next. The study says that number will be 20 percent in 2018, but will be supplemented by 21 percent of capacity from small cells integrated into the Wi-Fi platform.

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