One of the most important features of the Wi-Fi landscape in 2015 has been the rising importance of the homespot in the strategies of broadband service providers, says the Wireless Broadband Alliance.
Homespots are carrier-managed Wi-Fi home gateways with a second Service Set Identifier (SSID), which is left open for use by passers-by, often the carrier’s own subscribers.
The model was pioneered by FON, whose FONspots are used by many telcos such as BT in
the UK, Deutsche Telekom in Germany and other countries.
Homespots provide wider coverage in suburban and residential areas and complement urban or venue hotspots, with several advantages. The homespots create an extensive small cell network that can anchor a mobile service, as well as providing extensive in-building roaming coverage.
As such networks start to implement NGH/Passpoint, they will be able to be part of a carrier-grade network supporting voice and video services.
The number of home Wi-Fi gateways supplied by an ISP is growing, and will top 90 percent by 2018, according to IHS.
Total households with ISP-supplied 802.11ac access will rise to 472 million in 2018, up from just 116,000 in 2013, says the firm, and Rethink calculates that by 2019, over 80 percent of those gateways will support an open second SSID.
Such scale will be a significant competitive weapon for wireline operators looking to build Wi-Fi networks which are sufficiently ubiquitous and carrier-grade to help them compete with traditional mobile service providers.
For instance, Liberty Global intends to offer 10 million hotspots and homespots, across its European territories by the end of 2015.
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