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April 25, 2012

Crunching Data with Wi-Fi

Think about 18 million hours of video streaming. That’s the amount of video streaming that took place during March Madness alone. From 2010 to 2015, mobile traffic will increase 26 times – surpassing the amount of available bandwidth. Some reports claim that AT&T’s mobile data doubles each year.

Yet, the demand for mobile data isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon, and the usage of smartphones and tablets perpetuate more and more data traffic. Although there are many talented engineers who are innovating new ways to deal with mobile backhaul, time is running out. Backhaul solutions are expensive, and LTE is incapable of handling large data capacities. What’s going to happen when bandwidth runs dry?

Steve Wildstrom of Cisco proposes a data crunch plan that involves Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is safer and more efficient for mobile devices than public networks. There are probably numerous reasons to argue why Wi-Fi is the way to go with data crunch, but before you assume that you’ve heard this strategy before— as well as the rebuttals, Wildstrom has considered the cons.

He even admits that using Wi-Fi as a means of data crunching is, “a task much easier said than done.” What makes his proposal different is that he believes Hotspot 2.0 may solve at least one of the major problems that make data crunching via Wi-Fi a hassle.

One problem is the login process. Who gets the passphrase? Or perhaps it’s better to just leave the access point open? Wildstrom states that it is unnecessary to resort to these measures with Hotspot 2.0. Hotspot 2.0 authenticates users by reading SIM cards making the transfer of data a relatively smooth process.

Sure, there are still some kinks to be worked out here and there, but Neils Jonker, CTO of Boingo predicts that Hotspot 2.0 will be implemented by 2013 with heavily populated areas such as football stadiums and Times Square among the first to incorporate this technology.







Edited by Jennifer Russell


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