Winning with Wi-Fi
This has led to an interesting development: the MSOled MVNO movement. In fact, MSOs have been developing MVNOs since at least 2012, when China Telecom launched an MVNO at home and then in Europe with EE (which was called Everything Everywhere at the time). This is an interesting strategy, and one that is likely going to become more popular in coming years. It is also a perfect use case for advanced traffic management software, which can optimize connections based on the type of traffic and the type of service.
Emerging opportunities
All smartphones (and many feature phones) now have native Wi-Fi calling baked into their stock feature sets. And as mentioned earlier, mobile network operators ranging from T-Mobile to Verizon to
EE have implemented operator branded Wi-Fi calling into their phones. That is to say, the same dialer and phonebook can be used for cellular or Wi-Fi calling. This same functionality is available
to MVNOs, and by extension, the MSOs with whom they are associated, providing a competitive tool in the cableco vs. telco battle.
For MSOs, that means they already have the tools and to up their mobility game in ways that weren’t possible in the past. For MNOs, this is equally compelling. Traffic continues to skyrocket, and
backhaul becomes more expensive as well. This is especially true in the modern world of voice, Voice Over LTE (VoLTE). Since the voice traffic is now moving over cellular mobile data networks,
offload to Wi-Fi makes sense for MNOs, MVNOs, and MSOs alike. All told, there are compelling reasons to adopt a Wi-Fi first strategy.
Recipe for a Wi-Fi first approach
1. Quality of Experience
As mentioned earlier, some MSOs have already implemented Wi-Fi calling, and it has received mixed reviews. Two T-Mobile customers in Chicago with whom I spoke while researching this article informed me that the service is often much worse than cellular. However, in areas of a house with poor coverage, Wi-Fi calling was a good alternative. MSOs actually have an arrow in the quiver that MNOs don’t when it comes to Wi-Fi calling: they (usually) own the broadband line into the house.
The user interface and experience of Wi-Fi calling is also important to the quality of experience. Customers desire seamless, easy-to-operate calling that integrates directly with their existing phonebooks. On the app side, this is not rocket science, but this can be more challenging in terms of provisioning. There are just so many devices from so many manufacturers running so many variations of firmware that it’s often difficult for an operator to guarantee a certain QoE. At the same time, customers are nomadic and move across different networks, Wi-Fi and cellular. It’s not easy to maintain a high level of QoE across these disparate domains. To remain competitive, however, this is what is required.
2. Mobile device management
One effective solution for provisioning across multiple devices and service plans is Mobile Device Management (MDM). Many traditional telecom vendors offer MDM
solutions, and not surprisingly, they all show up at the Cable Show (now called INTX). Instead of doing over-the-air updates or installs that require user interaction, MDM solutions are typically
embedded clients installed by the operator. This enables an operator to handle the “grunt work” of provisioning, including phone configuration, SIP settings, authentication data, dialer, and
phonebook. Again, the goal is to create a seamless customer experience in order to be competitive.
