CenturyLink, Cisco team up for Wi-Fi location analytics

CenturyLink launched a new offering at Cisco Live that leverages Wi-Fi location analytics for the enterprise in combination with Cisco access points.
The new Wi-Fi analytics service was announced at Cisco Live in Las Vegas. CenturyLink described the solution as a fully managed offering that relies on Cisco Meraki access points and an analytics platform that gathers and processes customer demographic and location data, then provides social engagement and marketing tools so that businesses can react to data in real-time. The analytics reporting and marketing tools were developed by Purple.
CenturyLink Location-Based Analytics is “designed to help businesses create highly personalized experiences for visitors at their physical locations using a wide variety of engagement tactics, such as individualized messages, offers, wayfinding apps and activity suggestions,” the company said, adding that it can be used in places such as amusement parks, transportation hubs, college campuses and retail locations.
ABI Research has reported that growth in the use of Wi-Fi location analytics in retail was stronger than expected in 2015, with such installations up almost 400% year-over-year. The growth has been driven in part by both startups and access-point vendors such as Cisco and Ruckus Wireless gaining new platform partners, ABI noted.
“Previous iterations of Wi-Fi location platforms were expensive and not ideal for customer engagement,” said Patrick Connolly, principal analyst at ABI Research, in a statement earlier this year. “But retailers and vendors quickly grasped that Wi-Fi’s role in this space centers on gathering customer analytics.” Connolly went on to note that Wi-Fi and beacon vendors “are also developing their own high-accuracy proprietary solutions, which will start to penetrate the market” this year. “Overall, we also expect to see a big shift toward hybridization and increased accuracy in 2016,” he added.
Several CenturyLink and Cisco partners told CRN that the new Wi-Fi location analytics solution will be useful in the growing “internet of things” context. Michael Goodenough, VP of cloud solutions for IT consulting and managed services provider BCM One in New York City, told the publication that the offering “ties in all the components – from development, to hosting, to WiFi connectivity – it’s the full package, and this is a huge simplification.”
The location-based analytics offering adds to CenturyLink’s portfolio of Cisco products. The operator also offers a managed Wi-Fi service, which is utilized as part of the Wi-Fi location analytics solution, and a hosted voice and collaboration solution that leverage Cisco technology.
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