Adopting Best Practices for Wi-Fi: A Service Provider's Onus

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:45:00 EST

As smartphone users become more sophisticated, they are actively seeking out the service provider they believe offers the best overall network for their smartphone. Providers are learning that users are quick to switch if they are unhappy with their existing service. Customers today expect their smartphone to deliver high-bandwidth applications along with high quality voice services. Service providers must look to alternative for “offloading” these bandwidth-intensive applications if they are to keep up with this high bandwidth demands. After years of serving as a nice-to-have hospitality solution, IEEE 802.11 is being thrust into the forefront as a solution. The risk that providers face when using Wi-Fi for cellular offload is that unsatisfactory user experiences with Wi-Fi now result in a loss of high margin smartphone users. The reality is that consumers will, in most instances, not realize that new smartphones will move off a 3G or 4G service to a Wi-Fi network. At that point, end users will associate a poor Wi-Fi connection with a poor cellular network connection.

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Adopting Best Practices for Wi-Fi: A Service Provider's Onus