Telecom Lead Asia: Elitecore Technologies is betting big on 3G Wi-Fi offload solutions.
Working with ICT equipment vendors such as Nokia Siemens, Ericsson and Cisco, Elitecore Technologies has significant market share in Wi-Fi offload market.
Elitecore Technologies is currently working around 12 mobile operators in India the Saarc region. In 2013, Elitecore Technologies will focus on strengthening mobile data offload solution business and aim to gain further market share.
ABI Research says the vendor market place is getting interesting, with both traditional Wi-Fi vendors and non-traditional ones. Wi-Fi hotspot providers and cable operators with a Wi-Fi footprint are aligning themselves around this opportunity. It remains to be seen who will win in this market and who might get acquired with ample opportunities at hand.
Wi-Fi is embedded in 99 percent of the smartphones and with smartphone Wi-Fi usage climbing, Wi-Fi in mobile networks has become hot. Industry bodies like the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance are pushing for standard specifications like Hotspot 2.0, which would make Wi-Fi connectivity more seamless and easy to use.
At present, Elitecore has around 800 employees and 20-30 percent increase in manpower is expected in 2013. The expansion will assist Elitecore to gain market share.
READ Elitecore Technologies’ Wi-Fi offload offerings HERE
Utilization of Wi-Fi offload tools will become important for Indian telecom operators such as Vodafone, Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications to improve 3G user experience.
In fact, several operators in India are doing pilots and in different stages of picking up Wi-Fi offload solutions. Their present challenges include RoI from huge 3G project costs and enhancement to 3G coverage.
Recently, Elitecore provided Free, On-Event Wi-Fi at Formula-1 event in India for subscribers of a leading Indian operator. By assuring Wi-Fi availability to a large number of concurrent users in one location, the operator eased the anticipated congestion of 3G traffic, fulfilling the demand for up to 178 GB data transfer without compromising on quality of service.
“Leveraging Wi-Fi offerings, mobile operators can achieve cost-effectiveness and ease of transaction through Wi-Fi as it helps them optimize unregulated bandwidth to ensure better connectivity. Telecom operators are able to monetize different sets of subscriber usage trends. Besides, operators can enhance customer relationship management with their ability to offer Wi-Fi to existing mobile subscribers,” Nikhil Jain, COO, Elitecore Technologies, told TelecomLead.com.
Wi-Fi technology is an attractive option for MNOs when building wireless high-capacity networks. “The TCO of building Wi-Fi networks is allegedly around a tenth of that of 3G/4G network equivalents, so the business case looks strong provided that technical issues and commercial hurdles are resolved. The Wi-Fi and mobile industries are on convergent paths although it is likely to take a few years before the two technologies will be operating with end-to-end seamlessness,” said Claus Hetting, research analyst with Heavy Reading 4G/LTE Insider, in its 4G report.
Elitecore’s mobile data offload solution provides benefits to both mobile broadband operators as well as their subscribers. It enables operators to overcome the critical of enabling engaging experience for the end user. “For those users in the reach of a Wi-Fi network whose devices are not EAP SIM-compliant, the solution automatically prompts them to sign up through a captive portal, helping them avail the service with no waiting time,” Jain added.