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Global Trends in Public Wi-FiWBA Wi-Fi Industry Report November 2013

• Standards for interoperability and roaming are vital to address issues and boost confidence

• Roaming is very important to the business case, e.g. WBA’s ICP program

• Over 60% of carriers will deploy their own hotspots in certain areas

• But aggregators and roaming partners will be vital to achieve broad coverage

The perceived obstacles increasingly focus on commercial not technical concerns, as standards address the latter.

Use Wi-Fi aggregators for

national coverage & services 41.6%

Build own carrier-grade Wi-Fi in selected areas64.5%

Use Wi-Fi aggregators for

international coverage & services

32.0% Partner with other service providers

such as cable companies or WISPs

43.7%

Consider acquiring one or

more WISPs16.8% Other1.5%

Use so-called crowd sourced hotspots to leverage free & open

Wi-Fi services

20.3%

How operators plan to build their carrier Wi-Fi footprint

Improving customer experience to attract and retain customers is the most important reason to adopt a carrier Wi-Fi strategy.

Other key factors

• Reducing costs via offload

• Creating new revenues

• Improving indoor coverage

Wi-Fi is about total customer experience, not just offload

Key reasons to include carrier Wi-Fi services in a portfolio

Some obstacles remain to deploying carrier Wi-Fi and NGH

MANY OBSTACLES WILL BE ADDRESSED BY STANDARDS WORK

Mobile data offload remains important to MNOs and their partners, but the business case is moving well beyond just offload.

MNOs and MSOs will deploy

10.5 million hotspots a year by 2018, directly or with partners.

Cumulative base of carrier Wi-Fi

locations 55 million by 2018

Monetization strategies which are being implemented in 2013-2014

Deployment of hotspots for MNO or MSO networks

NEW BUSINESS CASES DRIVE INVESTMENT

PUBLIC Wi-Fi MOVES TO HEART OF CARRIER STRATEGIES

Key

fi

nd

ing

s

In a survey of the ecosystem, 52% are more confident about investing in public Wi-Fi

than they were a year ago

Confidence in investing in public Wi-Fi is rising sharply

51.8%More confident about investing

19.4%No change in attitude

18.8%More cautious

about investing

Other important emerging monetization strategies

• Location aware services

• Enterprise services

• Metrozones

Reasons for the increased confidenceIncreased willingness to invest reflects:

• Maturing of standards such as Passpoint and NGH

• Wider range of business cases

• Increased strategic interest of fixed and mobile carriers

Greatest barrier to deploying carrier Wi-Fi and NGH is uncertainty about the business model

Other barriers

• Need to ensure QoS

• Site issues

• Technology roadmap uncertainty

• Device availability

Source: W

BA

/MaR

e ecosystem survey O

ctober 2013 unless otherwise stated. ©

2013 WB

A – W

ireless Broadband A

lliance Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sou

rce:

Mar

aved

is-R

ethi

nk f

orec

ast

2018201720162015201420132012

5.2m

6.5m7.1m

7.9m 8.3m

9.6m10.5m

Improve customer experience and

retention

Reduce network costs by offloading

data

Generate new revenue streams

(advertising, analytics, M2M)

Improve indoor coverage

Other

Very important

Important

Somewhat important

Notimportant

www.wballiance.com | www.maravedis-bwa.com

43.7%

6.9%

36.8%

12.6% 29.2%

15.3%

28.5%

27.0%56.7%

3.5%

33.9%

5.9%

32.4%

7.6%

36.5%

23.5% 31.6%

4.7%

41.5%

22.2%