Wi-Fi tech is solution to congested telecom lines

Interview. Tanzania is yet to adopt latest mobile phone technologies which are useful for enhancing cellular phone connectivity in rural areas. BusinessWeek’s Ludger Kasumuni interviewed Mr Michael Fletcher (pictured), director of Ruckus Wireless of sub-Saharan Africa based in South Africa, about such technologies

What is your overview of the telecoms landscape in Tanzania?

Tanzania’s telecoms landscape is very similar to many other countries in Africa – where broadband accessibility is still a challenge.

But in Tanzania improvements are being made at a slower pace than in other countries in Africa, especially the likes of Kenya and Nigeria. To date, consumers in Tanzania haven’t been exposed to the full user experience of Wi-Fi technology while there are many hotspot vendors in cities like Dar es Salaam.

The country as a whole hasn’t been exposed to the full potential of Smart Wi-Fi and what it can do for the country in terms of access and affordability.

What are the advantages of Wi-Fi?

It is another form of connectivity and access, which can help facilitate all kinds of business transactions and other activities.

Ultimately for the mobile network operators, Wi-Fi is a far more cost-effective way to provide access to customers and for customers it’s a cost-effective solution, too - especially if their 3G networks are congested.

What’s more, many rural areas have no broadband at all, and as such Wi-Fi provides an alternative to bring broadband to rural areas for much less than what they would pay for 3G.

Fibre will provide another necessary means to connect Africa to the world and, just like the current undersea cables, will add additional speed, capacity and in maturity, decrease costs of broadband. However, while fibre and 4G/LTE services will certainly help increase cellular network capacity, it still won’t be enough, because as we continue to see around the world, there is an insatiable appetite for bandwidth and now, for spectrum as well.

That is why it is imperative for cellular operators looking to reduce subscriber agitation to add capacity and coverage as fast as possible.

What is the contribution of Wi-Fi in the telecoms industry?

Across Africa demands are changing, access models are changing and consumers are blurring the lines between corporate and personal spaces – becoming more vocal in terms of what they want - and what they want is access.

With more than 650 million mobile users in Africa and with 50 per cent of Internet connections being exclusively channelled through mobile devices, Africa is the second biggest mobile market in the world and the fastest growing.

With this growth, the expectation of increased capacity and coverage by users is exploding, but as more traffic, devices and concurrent connections hit mobile networks, the cost for transporting these bits rises.

This growth has had a direct impact on the networks and put additional pressure on the network operators to ensure that they have capacity to account for such demand. Wi-Fi is proving to be the solution to decongesting the mobile networks.

As a result, these trends are driving a new cellular network strategy that reduces Opex and Capex, using Wi-Fi to off load non-essential traffic from cellular networks as well as scaling coverage and capacity quickly, using smaller cell sizes.

As a result, we are seeing a lot of freer Wi-Fi, larger hot spots, Wi-Fi solutions being used in different verticals such as education – and most importantly, interest from service providers as to the viability of Wi-Fi as an alternative means for their users to access data.

In fact, Wi-Fi represents one of the most expedient and cost-effective ways to increase both capacity and coverage of cellular networks, with a tight focus on where traffic is heaviest.

What is Hotspot 2.0 and how can it improve connectivity?

Hotspot 2.0 is a technology focused on enabling mobile devices to automatically discover and securely connect to Wi-Fi hotspots with no user intervention. This is essentially the same as getting off an airplane almost anywhere in the world and still getting mobile phone service.

In some aspects, Hotspot 2.0 is actually more advanced than cellular roaming as it works with both dual-mode devices [those with Wi-Fi and cellular radios] and Wi-Fi only devices.

Hotspot 2.0 is a programme of the Wi-Fi Alliance, and is complemented by the Passpoint certification programme, which ensures APs and client devices comply with technical specifications.

Hotspot 2.0 capabilities are emerging in a series of releases. Release 1 came out in June 2012 and was focused on automating network discovery/selection, authentication, and over-the-air security.

Release 2 should be out near the end of 2013 and addresses the requirements for provisioning of non-Sim credentials and network selection policies onto a user’s device.