upload

VISIT TELLABS AT THESE UPCOMING EVENTS

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS February 27-March 1, 2012 Stand 2A47, Fira Montjuic Barcelona, Spain

Wi-Fi Offload on the Rise

With macro mobile networks under siege, operators will increasingly turn to a familiar technology—Wi-Fi—to help them ease their network load, with the deployment of public Wi-Fi hotspots expected to increase by 350% in the next 4 years. That prediction comes courtesy of research

firm Informa, as part of a report commissioned by the Wireless Broadband Alliance. According to the report, users worldwide will be able to connect to 5.8 million public hotspots by 2015. The growth in public Wi-Fi reflects the larger

trend among operators toward mobile data offload, leveraging not only Wi-Fi hot spots but pico- and microcells as well, plus new so-called small cell architectures to ease the load on mobile data networks. 

MOBILE BACKHAUL ASIA 2012 March 27-29, 2012

Stand #14, Conrad International Hotel Bangkok, Thailand

Global number of public hotspots

6 5 4 3 2 1 0

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Devices used in Wi-Fi hotspots

Other Wi-Fi-enabled devices

6% Tablets 10% BUZZWORD WATCH: ADDING CONTEXT TO THE USER EXPERIENCE

Gartner has been pushing the concept of context-aware computing—which at its core blends information from the mobile, social, digital and physical worlds into a powerful contextual mix—for some time, but given recent advances in computing and mobility, the concept seems closer than ever to becoming a reality. How much a reality? At the Gartner Symposium event

this fall, the research firm forecast that context-aware technologies will affect $96 billion in annual consumer spending worldwide by 2015. By that time, Gartner claims: • 15% of all payment card transactions will be vali- dated using context information.

• 40% of the world’s smartphone users (or about 720 million people) will opt-in to “context service provid- ers” that track their activities.

A major use of contextual information will be to reduce

fraud and better authenticate commerce users. A very simple example today would be gas stations requiring a zip code at the pump. But it will also have a major impact on entertainment, advertising and all manner of more targeted digital services. Gartner specifically points to several types of companies emerging as key players in the context-aware ecosystem:

payment card issuers, retailers, smartphone makers, social app providers, mapping data providers and healthcare firms. They mention Nokia, Microsoft, Baidu, Amazon, Google and Apple by name. Surprisingly, there are no telecom operators on that list.

But the telecom industry has the potential to be one of the most potent of all context service providers. Telecom carriers have deep information about individual consumers via their billing and service relationships. They are also gaining altogether new insights—often real-time insights— by watching, capturing and analyzing user behavior on today’s increasingly IP-driven networks, leveraging tools like deep packet inspection and in-network analytics. Those insights—including crucial context-aware data,

such as where the user is, what they are doing and what content or applications they are consuming—can help drive more targeted entertainment, more personalized marketing and advertising and improve the customer experience online by making it more tailored to a user’s particular likes and dislikes. Telecom operators need to learn how to capitalize on

context-aware computing, both for their own uses and as a new type of “service provider” in this larger, still emerging context-aware ecosystem. 

36% Smartphones 48% Laptops

SUBSCRIBE TO INSIGHT: WWW.TELLABS.COM/INSIGHT

TELLABS INSIGHT Q1 | 5

Public hotspots (mil.)