Once the exclusive domain of senior executives, mobile devices are now indispensable to most employees for conducting both their business and personal lives. The insatiable demand for smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices is generating staggering amounts of mobile data. In parallel, the use of Wi-Fi for Internet access is exploding as more mobile devices are Wi-Fi enabled, the number of public hotspots expands, and user acceptance grows. Once shunned by corporate IT departments, Wi-Fi increasingly has made its way into most businesses.

Business users are the most valuable customer segment for mobile operators. Changes in mobile behavior and usage, particularly with regard to Wi-Fi, could have a significant impact on service providers’ (SPs) bottom line. However, there is little research on how mobile business users are actually using Wi-Fi, how they want to employ it in the future, and, more specifically, what is driving them to connect their devices to the Internet using Wi-Fi.

To learn more, Read More »

Tags: business users, Cisco, devices, Hotspot, IBSG, mobile, monetization, research, Service Provider, Tablets, wi-fi

As we prepare to help host the upcoming Wireless Broadband Alliance Wi-Fi Global Congress in our own backyard in San Francisco, I’ve found myself reflecting on how far we’ve come with advancing the standards around Next Generation Hotspot.

In June 2011, Read More »

Tags: Hotspot, mobility, next generation hotspot, Service Provider, wi-fi, wifi

We recently recorded a webinar on Pervasive Wireless for BYOD. If you missed the webinar, you can find a recording of it here. During the session there were a number of great questions that came up and we felt it would be good to post them on the Cisco Mobility Blog. Here is a selection of the most informative questions from the session:

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Tags: 802.11ac, byod, Hotspot, wi-fi, wlan

These days it seems like practically every networking conversation I have involves mobility.  It makes sense because with this “always on” lifestyle, people have a wide variety of motivations and desires to connect to one another near and far in both fixed, nomadic, and truly mobile situations, whenever they want, wherever they want. And in many developing areas of the world which may not necessarily have the need for “constant connectivity,” they are turning to mobility for “connectivity” in general since it is possible to get much more broadband coverage, so quickly.  In fact, our Cisco VNI team forecasts that there will soon be more people connected to the Internet, largely through mobile means, than there will be connected to electricity.  Pretty amazing.

But with all of this talk of mobility whether it be discussions of  NGH or advances in EPC innovations and architectures or competing market claims of this vs. that, it can at times be confusing (editor note:  this author most certainly not exempt from that….)

So to break through that noise of all the mobility talk, we looked for truth in numbers – numbers on the market, where it’s been and where it’s going, and what’s Cisco’s role in enabling it all.  Here is what we found: Read More »

Tags: Hotspot, mobility, next generation hostpot, NGH, Service Provider

By Lisa Garza

It was raining in London last week during the LightReading event Strategic Opportunities in Service Provider Wi-Fi.  That might not sound unusual, but actually my cab driver said it had been a dry winter, and the rain was much needed for his garden.  That’s how I felt about the event – it felt like a lovely spring rain.

Heavy Reading Senior Analyst Gabriel Brown first addressed the packed room by likening the early days of Wi-Fi to the Wild West.  With the advent of carrier-grade Wi-Fi, the integration of Wi-Fi into Mobile networks, and initiatives such as the Wireless Broadband Alliance Next Generation Hotspot Program, the west is slowly Read More »

Tags: Hotspot, next generation hotspot, Service Provider, wi-fi, wifi