Yankee Group
Date: September 17, 2013
Devicescape is putting Wi-Fi offload on the front burner. The company signed two big deals for its curated virtual hotspot network, one with the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) and one with Leap Wireless’ Cricket.
FierceWireless reports the CCA deal gives CCA’s primarily small, rural operator membership access to Devicescape’s Wi-Fi network, enabling them to avoid launching their own proprietary Wi-Fi networks and the “cost-prohibitive capital expenditures” that would entail. Separately, Leap’s Cricket signed on with Devicescape, an interesting move since Leap is expected to soon be gobbled up by AT&T, which is not a CCA member. Devicescape’s Curated Virtual Network (CVN) includes more than 16 million public Wi-Fi hotspots. The company says it expects to reach 100 million access points by the end of 2017.
Yankee Group Principal Analyst Ken Rehbehn comments
“The strategic partnership between Devicescape and the Competitive Carriers Association is important because it removes a barrier smaller U.S. mobile operators face when considering Wi-Fi as a supplemental service offer. Tapping into the gold standard for Wi-Fi access, global roaming partnerships secured via the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), is costly and—in all likelihood—overkill for most CCA member customer needs. Access to Devicescape’s extensive curated data set describing available and open hotspots helps CCA members tie in a Wi-Fi service component for a fraction of the cost. Likewise, the partnership is important to Devicescape. The company wins as scale builds, and a relationship with one of the most important U.S. mobile operator organizations does just that.”
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