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October 09, 2013

We are Right to Call SuperWi-Fi, 'SuperWi-Fi'

SuperWi-Fi is not about Wi-Fi solutions. Let’s be clear about that. There is, though, a clear issue regarding what it is to augment both cellular and Wi-Fi services. 

On the cellular side, the need for speed that has driven us to LTE is data, and data does not need a head-end architecture. Backhaul, Offload, SDNs and SONs are all about the need to deliver more and more of the traffic to the Internet. Meanwhile, on the Wi-Fi side, there are efforts to make the carriers integrate with PassPoint, which sounds good as it provides for SIM card authentication of the smartphone. WIT Consult wrote “The Impact of Traffic Off-Loading on Spectrum Demand”, a report for the European Union Commission that offers clear indication that the smartphone dominates demand. 

So the question is the business model. 

In the case of AT&T and T-Mobile, their respective services at McDonalds and Starbucks suggest that they could provide the service and not think twice. In fact, for AT&T’s U-verse customers, the authentication at Mickey D’s can be based on that service, though it is free so there is little to gain other than the inconvenience. Expectations for PassPoint from the consumer perspective is for something more, though. They want high speed, and I have my doubts whether the carriers can deliver. Or more specifically, I am not sure that Wi-Fi solves the problem. The carriers building out a Wi-Fi network would take away from their delivering 4G LTE, which is their primary objective. In some situations, Enterprises deploying Femto / Pico cells can associate with the carriers, but what are the incentives?

Carriers need to find traffic offloading alternatives that change the price points and the models, and – as we well know – at best their history working together is mixed. A prime example is the poor participation in GSM’s IPX and Joyn, which demonstrates that for the carriers’ competition is more important than cooperation. 

At 5GHz, Wi-Fi alternatives are a possibility, however TV White Space is the place where the precedents are being made. In the U.K., Ofcom has approved moving TV White Space from trial to pilot, and the pilot is showing use cases: BT and Neul have expanded the Cambridge trial for the urban use cases, and Click4Internet, KTS and Sinecom are rolling out the implementation in rural areas.

As for the intelligent databases, companies looking to participate include iconectiv, Fairspectrum, Google, LS telcom, Nominet and Spectrum Bridge.

So what we have is a contrast of two models, one in which the carriers can benefit from sharing and one in which they have to cooperate. The variance sounds subtle, but the reality is that it represents a big difference in how the carriers partner and pay. 

Another subject that will surely come up for discussion at the next SuperWi-Fi is whether the smartphones themselves will take advantage of TV White Space. I originally thought this was a farfetched idea, but with the spectrum for LTE continuing to spread the spectrum out, TV White Space may represent just one more radio to support. And this radio will provide an offload the carriers can use to supplement their own network, as opposed to the Wi-Fi networks that are taking traffic from stationary areas today.




Edited by Rory J. Thompson


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