The document summarizes key findings from a 2016 industry survey conducted by the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) on next generation Wi-Fi and city-wide public Wi-Fi networks. Some of the main findings include: 1) Nearly 80% of respondents plan to deploy next gen Wi-Fi by 2020; 2) Investment in next gen Wi-Fi is at the highest level ever, driven by improving quality of experience and seamless access; 3) Traffic growth will be driven by IoT, video, and over-the-top services. Both convergence and coexistence between different network technologies are seen as very important approaches.

1. Copyright © 2016 | Wireless Broadband Alliance Ltd. All rights reserved
KEY TAKEAWAYS
WBA Industry Survey 2016

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Next Gen Wi-Fi remains a key technology
• By 2020, nearly 80% of the respondents will be
deploying Next Gen Wi-Fi
• 47% of the respondents will still deploying
‘traditional’ wireless technologies such as 2G, 3G,
4G and LTE
• 41% expect to deploy 5G by 2020, despite that
standardization will not be completed before
2020.
• Also in future network strategies, Next Gen Wi-Fi
remains very important, exceeding traditional and
emerging wireless technologies

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Investing in Next Gen Wi-Fi at highest level ever
• 74% of the companies are confident in investing
in Next Gen Wireless, an increase of 10%
compared to 2015
• Main drivers for investing in Next Gen Wireless
• Improving Quality of Experience and
reducing churn
• Providing seamless access between Wi-Fi
Networks
• Providing seamless access between Wi-Fi
and licensed networks
• Compared to previous years, seamless access
between Wi-Fi network are increased
considerably in terms of importance

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IoT, Video and OTT services will drive growth...
• IoT and New Verticals, Streaming Video and Wi-Fi
Calling/OTT Service will be primarily driving the
future traffic growth
• City-Wide Services, Location based service (LBS)
and Enterprise Services also expected to spur
considerable growth
• Growth in LBS and City Wide services matches the
outcomes of the main growth area’s, being
shopping malls, public transport stations and
public squares and spaces.

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More monetization strategies but challenges remain...
• More than ever, a mix of different monetization
strategies are key of have a successful
monetization, as there is no real single
outstanding strategy mentioned in the responses.
• Compared with previous years, we do see a
considerable increase in the important of public
access and a slight decrease in the importance of
roaming.
• Overall, the key challenges for companies are
consistent with previous years, with creating a
sustainable business model, ensuring quality of
experience and device availability being key issues

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Coexistence and convergence – a very important approach
• 63% of the companies believe that convergence
will be Important to Crucial for the network
strategies, with 37% of the companies finding it not
or somewhat important.
• With respect to coexistence, 71% of the companies
find it Important to Crucial, with only 29% of the
companies believe it will be not or somewhat
important
• This outcome of the survey matches exactly the
vision of the WBA, where convergence and
coexistence will become increasingly important
and needs to be addressed in the coming years.

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City Wide Public Wi-Fi Survey Results

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City-wide Public Wi-Fi demonstrates strong growth
• City-wide Public Wi-Fi is shown a strong growth,
and proving internet access remains one of the
most important services to be provided
• Compared to the results of 2015, providing
connectivity for city services, location based
services and big data analytics have gained more
than 10% each in terms of relevancy and
importance
• Public areas such as airports, public squares and
outdoor areas/hot zones remain to see a steady
increase in importance and will drive traffic
growth, but also Public Wi-Fi in shopping malls will
see a steady growth.

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Operators are the main partners for cities…
• In general, most of the business models used
provide free access to users – 78% of the cities
provide free access using different models. In 25%
of the cases access is sponsored.
• Compared to 2015, the ‘paid by user’ model has
decreased significantly by more than 10%
• Operators remain a key partner for cities,
compared to Infrastructure vendors or System
Integrators.
• Operators are seen to be pivotal in supporting
cities in providing CAPEX, OPEX, Maintenance and
Revenue Sharing or Generation

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How to match user expectations…
• Dealing with public expectations and privacy and
security concerns are , amongst others, main
challenges for cities.
• It is interesting to see that – despite security and
privacy concerns – a large amount of cities still
deploys less secure authentication methods such
as username/password or even no authentication,
which leads to the conclusion that WBA needs to
communicate the benefits of secure access more
strongly.
• Luckily, at the same time we do see an increase in
cities that are taking up the security challenge due
to the (strong) increase in the usage of EAP-
methods.

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Finally, convergence, coexistence and roaming…
• Equally to the WBA Industry Survey, convergence
and coexistence are becoming also for cities an
extremely important part of the network strategies
• 73% of the cities believe that convergence will be
Important to Crucial for their network strategies
• With respect to coexistence, 82% of the Cities find
it Important to Crucial for their network strategies
• Interest in roaming between cities remains
relatively low, primarily due to lack of a clear
business model and also a lack of standards and
guidelines how to interact with operators and
roaming hubs.