Bloomberg BNA
Date: September 18, 2014
Interview by Paul Barbagallo
Dave Fraser, CEO of the Devicescape, sees a “Clash of the Titans” brewing between the nation’s cable operators, wireless carriers, and high-tech companies over who best can exploit Wi-Fi for monetary gain. “These…forces are shifting the tectonic plates in the market,” he tells Bloomberg BNA in an interview. To Fraser and Devicescape, whose technology automatically detects nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and connects subscribers to one with available bandwidth, that’s a good thing.
Bloomberg BNA: What is Devicescape?
Dave Fraser: Devicescape enables operators of all kinds to give customers the best possible wireless data connection at any time. That might be on cellular, carrier Wi-Fi, public Wi-Fi or in the home and office. Everyone loves Wi-Fi, but it’s a fragmented environment. Devicespace’s mission in life is to organize it–in particular by weaving the millions of existing amenity Wi-Fi hotspots into a single Curated Virtual Network.
Bloomberg BNA:There has been enormous change in Wi-Fi, of late.
Fraser: Three powerful groups of players are currently looking to harness Wi-Fi for their customers’ benefit and their own. You have the cable operators focusing on Wi-Fi; you have mobile operators now embracing Wi-Fi as an opportunity rather than viewing it as a threat; and you have Internet players thinking about how they might use Wi-Fi to keep consumers connected more of the time so they can maximize use of their services. These three forces are shifting the tectonic plates in the market–it’s a real “Clash of the Titans.”
Bloomberg BNA: Do you see Wi-Fi ever emerging as a competitor to the mobile network operators?
Fraser: Actually I think the focus has shifted away from competition between technologies towards exploiting whatever connection is available in the moment to give users this always-best connected experience. Competition between providers remains intense, of course, and Wi-Fi is being used in different ways by different players to maximize their competitive potential. During the last year, we’ve seen the emergence of the ‘Wi-Fi First’ business model. Disruptive newcomers and cable operators are looking for ways to deliver smartphone connectivity that bypass the costs associated with cellular, both in terms of cap-ex and wholesale costs. But Wi-Fi first is also a great option for mobile operators that might be looking to expand into new territories.
Meanwhile, those mobile operators also want to use Wi-Fi as a complement to their existing cellular networks, which often struggle to deliver an optimum experience indoors. Users already consume more than 90 percent of their smartphone data indoors, and 65 percent of their data over Wi-Fi, so managing that usage to make it simple and more seamless is a great opportunity for all of these players. What we’re seeing now, and what we’ll continue to see, is an explosion of strategic interest in Wi-Fi across the board.
Bloomberg BNA: In terms of spectrum bands, what do you see as the next beachhead for Wi-Fi?
Fraser: One interesting development is the opening up of TV ‘white space’ spectrum for unlicensed Wi-Fi use across the globe. These bands have a wider reach so, instead of being a local area network, it has the potential to be a wide-area network. That’s pretty exciting because it enables new types of applications and new types of coverage. But existing amenity Wi-Fi is already a huge resource, both in terms of coverage and capacity. In a city like San Francisco, for example, the number of Wi-Fi locations that meet the quality, availability, and security thresholds for inclusion in our Curated Virtual Network, represents a 25x capacity increase over total available cellular. Deploying that kind of capacity is simply not possible for operators, whether they’re using cellular or Wi-Fi.
Bloomberg BNA: Do you foresee any regulatory issues for Wi-Fi, especially internationally?
Fraser: If anything, the situation is only going to improve. If you look to Europe, European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, who has had a huge impact on the EU wireless market, is a real champion of Wi-Fi. She’s on the record saying that the Commission wants to drive greater availability of Wi-Fi through improved spectrum allocation and lighter regulation. Commissioner Kroes is focused very much on the consumer experience and her attitude reflects exactly that usage pattern I mentioned earlier; consumers love Wi-Fi for its ubiquity and its great cost advantages. Last year the Commissioner suggested that Wi-Fi could account for almost 80 percent of smartphone and tablet data consumption in the EU by 2016. Users want to get connected and stay connected–and operators need to help them achieve their aim. Wi-Fi is fundamental to making that happen.
View the original article here: http://www.bna.com/wild-world-wireless-n17179894993/