57 percent of telecom network operators finalized their plans to deploy of Wi-Fi network.
80 percent of respondents plan to deploy in the areas if IoT / M2M. More than half have plans for converged services and smart city projects by 2020, said the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), quoting research company Maravedis-Rethink.
Carrier-grade hotspots will outnumber best effort in the installed base by the end of 2017. By 2020 only a small legacy base of best effort hotspots will remain – less than 10 percent of the total – with all new deployments being Carrier-grade or better.
“Within 5 years there will be as much as a 70 percent rise in the number of Carrier-grade public Wi-Fi hotspots deployed, vastly outnumbering current best effort,” said Shrikant Shenwai, CEO of the WBA.
In 2015, almost one-quarter of the business value of Wi-Fi relates to reduced costs and overall ARPU improvement. By 2019 these companies expect to be harnessing Wi-Fi, often in combination with their own networks, to generate incremental revenues directly. The biggest opportunities are seen in smart cities, Wi-Fi First and multiplay bundles including everywhere access to content and applications.
Meanwhile, WBA added 18 new members, taking the number of new members in 2015 to over 40.
The new members of WBA include; Bemol, BICS, Cibersys, Cirrent, Colony Networks, Docomo Pacific, Enforta, Mi-Fi Networks, Mitel, NetworkFX, Neustar, Openet, Panasonic, TeleWorld, VAST, Veniam, WIFIACTIVA and Zscaler, bringing the total WBA membership up to 125.
editor@telecomlead.com
