Markets & Customers
The Metro Wi-Fi Market
The metro Wi-Fi market is growing steadily. Municipalities, campuses and ISPs/carriers are deploying metro Wi-Fi networks across the globe.
The networks are being deployed in two core areas:
- Where there is little or no basic telecommunications or broadband infrastructure (in mainly developing countries)
- Where there is significant demand for high speed Wi-Fi services (universities, campuses, railways, downtown and dense urban areas) often in developed countries. Wi-Fi is being deployed in these situations as a complement to existing data services and also to solve the technical issue of insufficient bandwidth being provided by legacy networks.
Geographical areas where there is poor telecommunications infrastructure include:
- Large geographical areas in developing nations in Asia, Africa, Middle East, South America and parts of Eastern Europe where no telecommunications exists
- Remote and rural areas in developed nations where no cable or DSL services are available to provide high speed Internet services
- Major highways and railway corridors in both developed and developing nations which are not close to large cities and where they frequently have poor cellular reception for voice services and there is no ready access to high speed mobile data services
- New dense urban business and residential developments where the local telecommunications service providers are not able to deploy telecommunications services at a rate to satisfy customer demand.
In developing nations, there are many thousands of square miles where the local telecommunications providers have committed to roll out telecommunications infrastructure to local residents and businesses.
Areas in developed markets where there is demand for high speed Wi-Fi services include:
- Inner city areas where there are business travelers, municipal governments, inner city residents and small businesses demanding high speed mobile voice and data Wi-Fi services
- Universities where there is a need to provide both Wi-Fi voice and data services to students and faculty
- Hospitals where there is a large number of mobile staff and portable devices and there is a demand for high speed voice and data services
- Municipalities that want to provide their residents and businesses with high quality, mobile IP services.
The combined offering of Wi-Fi and 2.5/3G is a compelling complementary value proposition for the mobile data end user. When offered this combination, end users will use the Wi-Fi network when in a Wi-Fi hotspot or hotzone for faster and cheaper high speed data access, and will switch over to the slower and more expensive 2.5/3G network when outside of a Wi-Fi hotspot or hotzone.
Service providers are deploying metro Wi-Fi networks in key metropolitan or high end user density areas as a complement to their extensive 2.5G and 3G networks.
A number of carriers are working towards a common standard, 3GPP, which now incorporates the UMA technology initiative, to define how Wi-Fi will interoperate seamlessly with traditional cellular networks. As this standard becomes fully defined, and as mobile network and mobile devices have this technology incorporated, this will provide further impetus to the take-up of mobile VoIP/VoWiFi.
The RoamAD network architecture and patent-pending software-based platform deliver a high-capacity wireless network with low latency and fast hand-off characteristics making it ideal for mobile VoIP/VoWiFi. RoamAD is the leader in delivering high speed mobile VoIP/VoWiFi.
VoIP/VoWiFi is driving the growth of metro Wi-Fi networks as carriers search for the most cost-effective VoWiFi platform.
Customers
The types of organizations that are deploying RoamAD converged wireless networks include:
- Telecommunications service providers
- Municipalities
- ISPs and WISPs
- Utilities (power companies, airports)
- First Responders
- Universities, business campuses, hospitals