Monetizing Wi-fi Solutions for Entrepreneurially Challenged

In this fast-moving life internet has become a mandate asset to the world and when it comes to mobile data it is already sinking. Time has changed it’s time to go wireless. It’s time to adopt Wi-Fi and offloading of it too. Offloading wireless traffic to Wi-Fi networks is finally an idea that wireless carriers weren't solely considering but now in case of sprint they are even deploying it.

Wi-fi offloading refers to the switching of data from a mobile network to its complimentary Wi-Fi network providing fast and smooth performance enabling the options of VoWiFi and Wi-Fi calling.

How about providing some idiosyncratic solution to your clients and customers when they enter on your premises? You may be mall owner, a businessman, a shopkeeper or anyone. The Internet has become a world magnet in the business horizon and can help to attract new customers, opportunities, deals, and economic growth.

Infrastructure plays a dominant role in business. Your employees and customers both strive for a better infrastructure and environment perfect for transactions to take place and being a smart infrastructure owner at-least this is what you can do for them.

According to a report of Juniper Networks, which stated that Wi-Fi offloading plays a significant role in providing benefits to the stakeholders bringing seamless access to the Internet in addition to less call drops by balancing the ratio of stress in terms of call and data traffic on the wireless carrier. It is quoted by juniper networks "The proliferation of mobile broadband devices, along with the unlimited data bundles from operators, has led to network congestion and deteriorating network quality"

The report prognosticates that the mobile data traffic generated by smartphones, feature-phones, and tablets will grow twelve-fold to more than 115,000PB (petabytes) by 2019, "equivalent to almost 52 quadrillion tweets or approximately 9 billion Blu-ray movies." It predicts that about 65 percent of that data will be offloaded, which means that offload services could become an important consideration when selecting a network carrier. Some of the terms related to Wi-Fi Monetization are described below

Wi-Fi offload: Saviour to Mobile Data

Offloading is an effective network congestion reduction strategy to solve the overload issue compared to scaling and optimisation. It permits network operators to cut back the congestion within the cellular networks, whereas for the end-users it provides potency on data services and better bandwidth availability.

Some mobile carriers, including Vodafone & BSNL in India, are already deploying their own public Wi-Fi hotspots. This enables them to seamlessly fetch information traffic from their users’ smartphones once they are within range. Adding thereto the provision of widely deployed Wi-Fi network provides an honest value proposition to the carrier operator.

A brief process overview can be given to a carrier. Carrier or operator has two types of traffic generally data and call. Data has become enormous these days, so there is a need of providing data services at budgetary cost and with full-fledged on the go services.

If a customer enters in Infrastructure premises using the internet on mobile data and the premise is having a Wi-Fi offload solution. The customer will get a prompt indicating do you want to switch to Wi-Fi instead of using low-speed mobile data. If he chooses yes, the customer will be re-routed to Wi-Fi portal installed on the cloud, disabling mobile data and connecting to the Wi-Fi portal for using the Internet, providing better services to the customer and source of income by mobile vendors to Infrastructure owner as well.

Wi-Fi offload: Win-Win Scenario

Wi-Fi offload is a win-win scenario for all the stakeholders associated with it. Whether it is a customer who is getting a seamless and fast speed internet or Infrastructure owner, providing value-added services to customers and simultaneously getting paid from the wireless carrier, or the wireless carrier itself, providing best services to the customers on the same plan also cutting down the data traffic load on their servers.

Wi-fi offload: Stepping stone to Wi-Fi monetization

Active deployment of Wi-Fi offload in the workplace or any other infrastructure can potentially allow options like Wi-Fi monetization. Wi-Fi monetization can be an integration to Wi-Fi offload solution creating economic options for a venture or organization.

With the increase of the internet users in recent years also proliferated the internet based capital as well. Data is huge and enormous and multiplying day by day. What if we could make this data as the source of capital? Have you ever been to Starbucks and used Wi-Fi services there for some time while having your coffee? If you have your Wi-Fi enabled, you get a prompt to use free Wi-Fi and when you click on that, a white screen shows up asking for your mobile details and an OTP (One Time Password) which has been sent to your device.

That white screen acts as a User Interface between (User) and the AAA system and is called the Captive portal. Once you enter the correct OTP you get 30 minutes free Wi-Fi. Authentication of OTP and mobile details authorization is done by AAA. There are a lot of interfaces used in Telecommunication but in terms of AAA, Radius interface is used to exchange the data information between both the entities, Captive portal, and AAA.

Wi-Fi monetization simply means giving Wi-fi services to the customers for some time and earn through the advertisement played on the Captive portal at that time. End-users can also purchase Wi-Fi services by E-payment as well. Wi-Fi monetization enables ample business options for the infrastructure owner and helps in applying in new business and revenue models.

AAA: Where magic happens

AAA means Authentication, Authorization, Accounting. It is a software layer which deals with real-time policy control. AAA has its own brain It can get the details from the end-users and get it checked from the server and based on that information the access rights are given. Once the rights are given the AAA make sure that the time counter has been started based on the infrastructure owner request.

The most important work in any process is to take the decision. AAA is designed in such a way that automatically takes the decision based on the information provided by server and database mechanism using RADIUS interface.

Real-Time policy Control: Reckoning Machine

In terms of Communication Industry, Policy means the rules and charging policy of a Wi-fi Hotspot provider which is handled by PCRF (Policy and charging rule function) Though PCRF didn’t come into picture w.r.t to Wi-Fi monetization but it does take place in Wi-Fi offload. All the charges are deducted from the data bank of customer and PCRF holds the logs and records of usage.

Though we accept it or not, the next world would be ruled by wireless technologies and innovations creating ample opportunities for business and technical processes too. It is high time that we must welcome the wireless innovation unless it would forcefully add them in our lives making it all wrong for present cable based scenario.

-Shivam Aggarwal