Top Wi-Fi Trends for 2015: a supplier’s perspective
It’s no longer a niche technology and has become a strategic solution for organisations whose employees and customers rely greatly on always being connected. In the case of the businesses, lack of reliable Wi-Fi puts you at a serious disadvantage.
As the worldwide demand for Wi-Fi continues in 2015, and more businesses turn to Wi-Fi to help streamline their processes, we can expect some interesting trends to emerge:
Enterprises tap into 802.11ac
In 2015, the benefits of 802.11ac will continue to be widely appreciated in the enterprise. Wave 2 of the technology, which can enable data rates of nearly 7 Gbps, will have enterprises, workplaces, organisations and schools rushing to support it. The adoption of consumer 802.11ac smart devices combined with the continued growth of BYOD is forcing organizations to migrate to 11ac-supported Wi-Fi infrastructure sooner rather than later.
News ways to monetise WLAN
Monetising the WLAN has traditionally meant charging for its usage. However, organisations now have the option to provide value-added services – such as analytics, advertising, and marketing – as new ways to help monetise their WLAN assets. These services can greatly benefit the business to understand trends on their networks, such as customer movement and demographics. In 2015, we will see continued growth of these new ways to monetise Wi-Fi infrastructure investments.
The Cloud enables managed WLAN services
In 2015, the cloud will continue to provide Value Added Resellers (VARs) with easy-to-deploy, cost effective Wi-Fi to customers that prefer it delivered as a managed service. Small businesses, for example will be able to benefit from enterprise technology such as location-based services (LBS) and secure guest access, now available to them due to the cost reduction and flexibility that the cloud has introduced.
Benefits of Hotspot 2.0 realised by vertical markets
In 2014, Hotspot 2.0 (Passpoint) technology was deployed predominately across public spaces by operators and managed service providers, enabling a Wi-Fi roaming experience akin to that on a cellular networking.
In 2015, Hotspot 2.0, release 2, will improve on the considerable innovations introduced in release 1. Release 2 is largely focused on standardising the management of Hotspot 2.0 credentials on a client device; how they are provisioned, how they are stored on the device, how they are used in network selection, and how long they are made valid. These capabilities should encourage more vertical markets to adopt the technology – such as hospitality and transportation – where a seamless and secure Wi-Fi experience will improve business processes.
Drive for cost cuts drives virtualisation
The never-ending drive to cut costs in Data Centres by reducing real estate and facilities expenses continues to drive the demand for virtualization. For wireless, virtualization provides another level of resiliency that is tied into the Data Center high availability model. Virtualization also lowers the CAPEX for many technologies, which opens the doors for managed services.
We now live in a data centric world, and no technology is better suited to address this reality than Wi-Fi. It has become a technology that users look for in any business or public venue they enter, and in many ways has become a utility. Enterprises that don’t offer Wi-Fi are at a serious disadvantage, and as more businesses come to this realization, 2015 is poised to be a definitive year for Wi-Fi.
About the author:
Roger Hockaday is director of marketing for EMEA at Ruckus Wireless – www.ruckuswireless.com
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
