The close of every year brings startling headlines that herald the continued meteoric rise of mobility. This past year was no exception. The 2014 announcement that there are now more mobile subscribers than inhabitants on the planet exemplified the mobile zeitgeist and its importance in our daily lives.

But, the big mobile news in 2014 was around Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi continues to blanket the world, with iPass estimating that the number of public hotspots will increase almost 8-fold over the next four years to cover 1 out of every 20 people on the planet. And, Wi-Fi is becoming more like the mobile cellular experience. The seamless authentication and experience promised by Hotspot 2.0 is now available, with Time Warner and others announcing last year that they would roll it out across their entire Wi-Fi networks. And, we can now roam to other international Wi-Fi networks, like we do on cellular, with Comcast and Liberty Global, and other providers, announcing global roaming agreements. And, 2014 saw mobile operators beginning to embrace Wi-Fi in a big way. T-Mobile USA began shipping wireless routers to provide five bars coverage at home by allowing customers to make calls over Wi-Fi instead of the mobile network.

Of all the 2014 Wi-Fi activities, perhaps the biggest event was Read More »

Tags: Cisco, future, mobility, monetization, predictions, wi-fi

The brisk inflation of 802.11ac in the Wi-Fi industry is evident from the large stream of wireless products entering the market with a stamp of the latest IEEE wireless standard. With that said, the Outdoor Wi-Fi Market is certainly not staying behind to join the 802.11ac bandwagon either. Cisco recently launched industry’s first 4×4, three spatial streams outdoor 802.11ac access point – Aironet 1570 series AP.

Taking into consideration an outdoor environment’s lively nature with the least multipath opportunities, and the presence of trees, high rises, and open spaces, it’s crucial to have a robust wireless solution to achieve the true benefits of 802.11ac. Miercom’s recent report helps find out the answer to the most ideal outdoor 802.11ac solution question. A comprehensive performance analysis on 802.11ac Outdoor Access Points, this third party vendor test report comprises of throughput performance, consistency and feature tests for flagship outdoor access points from three vendors including Cisco AP1572, Aruba AP275, and Ruckus APT300.

The report encompasses four major tests which provide an outlook of the performance capabilities of each access point in a real world environment. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from each test analysis.

Read More »

Tags: #80211ac, iPhone 6 performance, iphone6, Miercom, Outdoor WiFi, wi-fi, wireless

By Lisa Garza, Cisco Service Provider Marketing, Mobility Solutions Everything old is new again, and that’s true for voice over Wi-Fi. When Apple announced support for Wi-Fi calling on the new iPhone 6 this fall, a new hype cycle was born. In the most extreme cases some industry players are claiming the resulting death of residential licensed small cells. As in most technology introductions, the truth will unfold over time as the technology is applied in the real world. If voice over Wi-Fi were a simple panacea, then we would all Read More »

Tags: 802.11ac, access points, carrier networks, mobility, Service Provider, small cells, UMA, Voice over Carrier, wi-fi

I put a Zubie in my car today. I really wish that NPR’s “Car Talk” radio program was still on the air, so I could call in and say that sentence to Tom (sadly, deceased this week) and Ray Magliozzi, aka the “Click and Clack Brothers.” They’d have a lot fun with that.

After seeing so many interesting connected transportation solutions from Cisco and others at the recent ITS World Congress in Detroit, I felt inspired to get my own car connected! Zubie is one of a several available apps and services that allow you to “manage” your car from a mobile app, e.g., perform a car “health check,” see how well you drive, create geofences to track your car, for example, when your newly-licensed teenage child borrows it for the night.

I signed up for Zubie even though I know they’re going to make money from the car-sourced analytics that they get from my car (beyond subscription fees, waived for the 1^st year). According to their privacy policy, they will gather data about my vehicle usage over time, which includes speed, braking, acceleration, and the geolocation of the Zubie key that I plugged into my car’s OBD-II port. This data Read More »

Tags: connected car, data analytics, mobile targeted advertising, mobility, Service Provider, wi-fi, wifi, wireless

Thought-leaders, implementers and creators across public sector, private business and education gathered for the second annual Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) in Chicago.  It was an opportunity to see  real  examples of the Internet of Things (IoT). While the buzz was about IoT, CMX provided meaningful insights like average registration times, visitors in various zones by the hour, and corresponding dwell times.  It was possible to predict which vertical is more likely to adopt IoT first, based on device count, dwell time and traffic patterns.

Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences is a solution that lets organizations leverage their existing Wi-Fi infrastructure for business analytics, and transform the way they connect with their mobile end-users.  The Cisco CMX solution consists of Detect, Connect and Engage, which work in unison to create an end-to-end mobile experience for the user while providing business benefits to the enterprise.

• Detect: Aggregate and visualize location data from the Wi-Fi network
• Connect: Easy, secure guest access to the Wi-Fi network
• Engage: Customize the end-user mobile experience to delight customers in your venue

Here are some of the reports we generated and the observations we’ve gleaned.

Registration

One of the common reports from CMX Analytics is hourly visitors and dwell time. This “Registration” chart provides a view of total number of visitors and corresponding dwell times for the entire day by the hour. The key takeaway is that most participants were registered by 9:00 a.m.  and the average wait time was 15 minute.  In business terms, this is a great sign for the operations side of the events team, which was able to maintain a consistent average wait time despite the clear spike and variation of registrants entering the zone.

Breakout Popularity

One of the widgets on the CMX Analytics dashboard can be configured to show comparative device count by zone.

Notice the widget on the bottom right hand side: a comparison of device count by breakout rooms. This provides an insight to which breakout session was most popular.

With a simple cross-check, compare Read More »

Tags: cmx, cmx analytics, connected mobile experiences, internet of things, IoT, IoTWF, mobility, wi-fi