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Hotspot Operators Missing Out On Roaming Revenues
WISP Roaming Non-Existent Finds New Report
21st May 2003, Ledbury,UK: Workable commercial roaming agreements are vital to the future of the fragmented wireless LAN hotspot market. However multi-lateral roaming agreements of the type found in the cellular industry remain non-existent among hotspot operators according to a new report from W-LAN experts BWCS and Swedish venture capitalists BrainHeart Capital. WISP Roaming – Single Subscription, Global Reach found that only 12 of the 26 largest hotspot operators worldwide had any roaming agreements in place and of those that did none could be classified as true commercial roaming.
“Among the WISPs that operate roaming agreements many are simply bilateral free agreements that involve no clearing or settlement of service fees. In this way companies such as Telia HomeRun and BT have enlarged their international hotspot footprints without the hassle and cost of implementing a commercial roaming platform.” said BWCS consultant Peter Kingsland.
However, Kingsland warns: “This can only ever be a stop-gap solution as without a full multilateral roaming platform in place WISPs risk losing up to 30% of potential hotspot revenues. Unlike the cellular industry national roaming will be just as important as international roaming to hotspot operators.”
The BWCS/BrainHeart study found that the main obstacle to the development of a viable multilateral roaming platform for WISPs was underlying uncertainty about the market as a whole. Many hotspot operators are cautious about selecting potential roaming partners and platforms for fear of backing the wrong horse. Kingsland said: “The general consensus among the WISPs, mobile operators and roaming enablers that were interviewed was that specialist cellular clearing and settlement houses will ultimately take on hotspot roaming. In the meantime hotspot operators are using a combination of strategic bilateral agreements and partnerships with aggregation brokers such as GRIC and iPass to enlarge their W-LAN service coverage.”
Other key findings of the report were:
· Hotspot roaming will follow the same pattern as GPRS roaming.
· Roaming support for virtual WISPs without their own hotspot network is vital.
· Aggregators are not expected to dominate hotspot roaming in the future.
· However aggregators will continue to play an important roaming role among Greenfield WISPs.
· Seamless handover between W-LAN and cellular networks is not viewed as a commercial priority by the majority of hotspot operators.
· The vast majority of WISPs remain sceptical about SIM-based authentication.
About: WISP Roaming – Single Subscription, Global Reach
This new report from BWCS and BrainHeart Capital provides a definitive guide to the hottest issue that is currently facing the W-LAN hotspot sector. Based on interviews with senior executives from 70 roaming enablers, WISPs and telcos the report analyses the key technical and commercial aspects of WISP and cellular roaming today and in the future. Includes profiles of all the major roaming enablers, clearing houses and WISPs with specific focus on their hotspot roaming strategies.
WISP Roaming – Single Subscription, Global Reach is just one of the incisive Market Insight reports that is available to subscribers to BWCS’ continuous information service W-LAN Continuum.
About: Wireless LAN Continuum
Wireless LANs are the most exciting and dynamic sector of today’s wireless industry. However like most developing technologies the players, business models and applications are changing almost daily. BWCS believes that this type of market demands a continuous and focused analytical approach that cannot be covered by market reports alone.
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