Aptilo Networks sees a strong year for Wi-Fi, with greater analytics, marketing potential, closer ties to IoT and as a stepping stone to 5G.
Editor’s Note: With 2017 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from across the mobile telecommunications space on what they expect to see in the new year.
Wi-Fi vendors have been busy developing new ways to use Wi-Fi, to deploy Wi-Fi and most recently how to monetize free Wi-Fi. In 2017, this trend continues with an increasing focus on how Wi-Fi can add value that goes far beyond the technology as such, and this shift is changing the game for operators.
Integration: turning information into insight
Right now we have many infrastructure players and services generating data, but staying within their individual silos. A Wi-Fi network at a shopping mall can give insights about users and their behavior, but only inside that mall. A mobile operator has insights of a user’s movement outside, but is blindfolded when the user moves inside the mall. They can normally not provide the granularity of the visitor’s location inside the mall that is needed to add value to the retailer. In addition, they do not have the opt-in demographics data that comes with a social media login to the Wi-Fi network. No one sees the big picture.
In 2017, we will start to see the integration of independent streams of analytics combining operational data from both Wi-Fi and cellular networks as well as user data. In a future where you may have both small cells and Wi-Fi at the same location, it’s not enough to just get info from one of the network alone even for a single venue.
Integrating the noise from many siloed data streams turns this raw information into real insight.
A mobile operator that sells managed guest Wi-Fi services to the shopping mall in the example above is in a unique position. For example, the many competing cloud-based guest Wi-Fi services out there can only provide the shopping mall with information about a user’s movement within the mall. A mobile operator can potentially go beyond that and, for instance, tell the mall how many women ages 25-30 have visited not only them, but also a competing shopping mall, and how often. All this must of course be done as opt-in and within the legal requirements of each country.
Wi-Fi marketing gets starring role
Wi-Fi marketing is starting to push customer engagement. To date, businesses have been focused on their own specific campaigns. For instance, “here is the soup of the day” in the case of a restaurant providing Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi is now finally becoming a larger part of the advertiser’s toolbox providing an increasing number of targeted eyeballs. In 2017, Wi-Fi becomes a mature marketing and customer engagement tool, integrating with professional advertising networks.
And this, too, is about integration, with Wi-Fi feeding data into venue customer relationship management, customer engagement and campaign systems, creating intelligent marketing. Wi-Fi has always been an island. Now it is becoming lots of integration points for a streamlined funnel through which data is captured, integrated for a holistic, three-dimensional view.
Hotspot 2.0: The captive portal is dead, long live the captive portal
2017 might just be the tipping point when there will be a critical mass of real Hotspot 2.0 Release 2 support for new devices. Embracing that change will reduce the importance of the captive portal over time. Venues and enterprises have relied on user authentication as the gateway to grab user data and engage with users. With Hotspot 2.0, users will already be authenticated. CRM and campaign management systems will still need to be populated with insights – yes the customer visited this location, etc. Communication with the user will need to be based on new triggers rather than from the captive portal.
Intelligent portal interaction with the end user is where we’re headed.
It is quite possible to automatically authenticate the user through Hotspot 2.0 first and then, based on policy for that location, forward the user to a portal for branding purposes (alternatively send a text message or email).
Captive portals will also be used for the one-time online sign up to provision profiles for Hotspot 2.0.
So, from being a method to control user access, captive portals will in the long run become a tool to provision devices for automatic and secure login of users to the Wi-Fi network and to engage with them at the different venues.
IoT goes horizontal and ramps up for Wi-Fi
This year we’ll see the development of the horizontal internet of things platform. Until now, in IoT there has been a flurry of devices working independently on their own IoT platforms. For example, I can turn the heat on in my Volvo with my smartphone. There’s a platform taking care of that and nothing else. There’s a need for a horizontal layer of common IoT functions such as authentication, provisioning, policy and charging where you can have different types of applications in the backend connecting to that platform. This trend will also facilitate the ability for operators to add value in the IoT ecosystem by offering both connectivity and those horizontal functions.
Further down the line, in a few years, we will see low-power/long-range Wi-Fi (HaLow) embedded into the chipsets of Wi-Fi access points and IoT devices. This will make Wi-Fi one of the most important transport technologies for IoT. Just imagine when the installed base of millions of access points has built-in support for IoT. Furthermore, the additional cost to add different sensors such as temperature and smoke sensors into the Wi-Fi access point is relatively low. We already see how some vendors are starting to add those sensors into their access points. This is another reason why service providers need a Wi-Fi strategy. At least if they are serious about IoT.
Industry gets realistic with 5G
The perception is that “5G” will be fully rolled out in 2020. But only 8% will have even started in 2020, and 45% will not start until 2024 or later, according to a Rethink Wireless report. Wi-Fi is a building block that will run in parallel to 5G, it’s readily available and it offers the low latency operators need now.
2017 will be the year when the mobile industry comes with realistic projections regarding 5G. Everyone has been in hype mode. Now we’re coming down to reality: how will 5G be defined, how will products come out in the market and what’s the willingness for operators to invest.
