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Author: Ed Finger, Consulting Systems Engineer

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• S E R V I C E P R OV I D E R W I - F I •

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY| 1www.cciwifi.com

The land grab is on! Small cell network architectures have already launched a revolution in the wireless industry. Now an emerging architecture, Service Provider Wi-Fi (SP Wi-Fi), offers significant opportunities in the unlicensed spectrum. SP Wi-Fi can help you deliver a seamless user experience; enhance your network footprint cost-effectively; and generate new revenues from mobile carriers, analytics customers and verticals such as education, multi-dwelling units and utilities. Construction is more affordable than for small cell solutions in the licensed spectrum and can be completed in phases—but the time to act is now: The first service provider to grab the “neutral host” position wins.

CCI Systems is ready to help you succeed in the SP Wi-Fi space. Our engineers help you maximize network assets and plan your build step by step. BandWise, our managed solution for monetizing bandwidth, gives you a cost-effective tool for streamlining authentication, monitoring network traffic and turning analytics into a new revenue stream.

Macro cells in the licensed spectrum. Cellular networks have been built using macro cells, with a typical radius of one to 20 Km, operating in the licensed spectrum. Carriers obtain government permits to use a specific frequency, from 800 MHz to 2500 MHz, in a specific location. The larger the cell, the easier it is to deal with handoffs (roaming), backhaul, and installation and maintenance costs.

Large areas can have many different devices competing for a cell’s bandwidth. And as a handset or customer device moves away from the cell transmitter and closer to the cell’s edge, it must use more power to transmit to the base station, shortening battery life.

The result can be a poor user experience, made worse by free path loss (reduced power as radio waves travel farther from the cell base station) and signal attenuation (objects obstructing and absorbing the signal). In shopping malls, stadiums and other large venues, the signal can also be inhibited by concrete with rebar, window areas and other construction, as well as a large number of users accessing services from one location—for example, food courts or cinemas or stadium concession stands during halftime. It’s difficult to engineer networks for optimal coverage and throughput in such areas.

Early small cell solutions. To combat these issues, carriers have turned to a hierarchical structure that splits the licensed spectrum between macro cells and micro cells, which have a typical radius of 200 to 2000 m. Meanwhile, indoor coverage limitations have fueled a growth in distributed antenna systems (DAS) and femto cells—small, low-power base stations for homes and businesses.

There are a number of Tower Providers that build out DAS networks as a “neutral host,” offering “access” to their network for new revenue opportunities. Wireless carriers lease the antenna arrays for access to venues without having to invest in network construction or maintenance. DAS networks typically support all frequency bands and do not limit the number of wireless carriers on the network. They also provide revenue opportunities for the venue operator.

HOW NETWORK ARCHITECTURE SHAPES THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE1.

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Advanced small cell solutions. A newer solution to the coverage/capacity challenge is small cell networks—licensed micro, pico and femto cells. They have substantial use cases in the wireless carrier network; however, they support only a single carrier (with micro cells offering the potential for multiple frequencies). Providers deploying these small cell technologies must take care to mitigate interference with the macro cell.

Building a hierarchical network demands significant planning and resources. And even the network architectures that take advantage of small cell technologies still use the limited, expensive resources of the licensed spectrum.

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Service Provider Wi-Fi is an emerging network architecture that uses public spectrum to provide clients connectivity. Operating in the unlicensed ISM and UNII bands, in the 2.4 and 5.0 GHz frequency ranges, these networks use lower-cost Wi-Fi access points to improve coverage and better manage the ubiquitous nature of Wi-Fi user devices.

As a service provider you gain the ability to augment network capacity without the complexity and cost of adding DAS, micro, pico and femto cells. SP Wi-Fi can be implemented in three phases:

1. Build out the Wi-Fi enabled network. 2. Offload data from the macro cell architecture to the SP Wi-Fi network. 3. Integrate Wi-Fi and cellular data for seamless roaming between the two network architectures.

Cost-effective structure. SP Wi-Fi combines outdoor and indoor wireless access points (APs) to create hotspot (single area) and hotzone (contiguous area) coverage in the unlicensed spectrum. An outdoor AP’s range is around 250-300 ft for client access and 600-1200 ft for backhaul.

The APs are connected through wired or wireless (mesh) networks to a central controller that gathers information about the surrounding RF environment. The controller can then adjust the parameters of each AP to support optimum performance. The network licensing capacity is based on the number of APs controlled, rather than the number of concurrent user sessions. Because unlicensed bands are allowed only limited transmission power, good coverage requires a greater density of APs. This can increase deployment costs but also adds benefits: greater density improves the ability to locate client devices and to mitigate interference.

Multiple networks can be advertised from a single AP (although that sends more management messages into the airspace). That means you can offer multiple carriers access to the SP Wi-Fi network, providing a front end and offering tiered quality of service (QoS).

Enhanced speed. There’s also a speed rush in the unlicensed Wi-Fi space. 802.11ac, the next generation of Wi-Fi access, is expected to offer speeds up to 1.2Gbps. Clients will be able to attach to more streaming services (video, live broadcasts). 802.11u (Hotspot 2.0 or Passpoint) will let Wi-Fi devices automatically log onto a carrier’s network, much as cell phones do today. This increases the opportunity to use CCI BandWise as both an authentication entity and a bandwidth monitor.

INTRODUCING THE ALTERNATIVE: SP WI-FI

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Service Provider Wi-Fi gives you new ways to make or save money. Here are just a few (keeping in mind that tomorrow will bring new opportunities no one has envisioned).

Retain customers. Early deployments of SP Wi-Fi for Tier 1 multi-system operators (MSOs) focused on stemming the flow of customers to FiOS offerings. FiOS offered hard-to-match high speed data delivery, but there was no connection between wired and wireless networks. MSOs seized the opportunity to offer an integrated experience with ubiquitous Wi-Fi access. Customers could have cable Internet at their home/office and use the same authentication credentials to access the Wi-Fi network for free.

Of course this drove the need to build the Wi-Fi infrastructure - currently about 30,000 APs. With this network in place, other MSOs could establish roaming agreements to give their clients access. MSOs are also establishing more roaming agreements between their networks to create a seamless Wi-Fi customer experience. With the advent of HotSpot 2.0, users will be able to log onto a network

automatically. CCI’s BandWise used onsite or in a hosted environment should make authentication and bandwidth management easier for service providers.

Offload data. The cost of acquiring sites, building and maintaining macro-cell networks is increasing, but so is user demand for data. Mobile service carriers facing this dilemma can use a SP Wi-Fi network to offload data from the mobile network. As customers come within range of a hotspot or hotzone, they can use the less-expensive Wi-Fi network for their data traffic-freeing up the more expensive licensed frequencies for other customers.

Grab the neutral host position. As with DAS, in which different carriers share the antenna array, Wi-Fi offers revenue opportunities for a neutral host. If you’re the first service provider to build a wireless infrastructure, you have a good chance of winning the land grab. You can establish different QoS tiers, lease service set identifiers (SSIDs) or wireless network names to Tier 1 mobile and MSO carriers, and charge for backhaul data services.

HOW SERVICE PROVIDERS CAN MONETIZE WI-FI

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Make money from analytics. You can also leverage infrastructure analytics for new revenue opportunities. Using RF fingerprinting and signal strength values from client devices, your Wi-Fi network can plot locations and client movements, identifying how frequently and how long a client is at a particular location. That’s valuable information. For example, picture a shopping mall that offers free Wi-Fi (which you supply). The mall is divided into Wi-Fi coverage zones. As a client device nears a particular store, the network pushes down a special sale item, enticing that client into the store. Once the client is inside, the network could push more items to the device. It also could track the device over time and send an updated store map – similar to a personal shopper – based on time spent in a particular location. CCI’s BandWise, used with analytics, can help you give premium customers more bandwidth access for such activities.

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Concentrate on profitable verticals. Consider monetization opportunities in verticals such as the following.

Education. More and more school districts are implementing wireless technologies, moving away from computer labs and traditional wiring toward tablet education. Imagine what it could mean for any educator in a unified school district to be able to access network services from any location.

As a service provider, you can use a hosted model to connect school districts across the entire service area. You can also use the school district network to increase your network footprint, using a model of hosted SSIDs. Data can be secured for the

school district and private networks through network access control and cloud-based solutions. The school district gains a state-of-the-art wireless network without burdening its IT resources. You gain economies of scale in network footprint, IT resources and wireless controller equipment.

Multi-Dwelling Units (MDUs). Most MDUs and even entire subdivisions have not leveraged the opportunity of wireless. Providers typically bring services to the demarc point and then try to sell to individual customers. Add wireless to your offerings, perhaps splitting revenues with developers and property managers, and let them manage tenants through homeowner association fees or monthly maintenance fees.

You gain single account management instead of an individual sales model, and better network penetration as you optimize mounting locations, spectrum use and efficiency. Add analytics to the picture and uncover new opportunities—for example, selling home monitoring and management services. Combine analytics and cameras, and you can offer options such as checking common areas, or delivering real-time play information for a golf course. Operators can even use your network to provide snack and beverage services from anywhere on the course via a smartphone app.

Utilities. The “smart grid” is growing as more homes use smartphones and wireless technologies to monitor power status and control heating and cooling, lighting and security. Utility companies favor the smart grid because they can better manage service demand without building new power generators. But not all utilities can handle the data traffic from these connected homes.

As a service provider, you can help utilities implement and maintain a complex network that includes wireless. It’s also a chance to perform backhaul and maintenance of the utility network. You leverage your networking expertise to provide a service, freeing the utility company to focus on its core service delivery.

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Here are a few approaches to launching your wireless play. CCI Systems can help you develop a business plan based on your specific network and market.

Make the most of existing capabilities. Look at your readiness to sell new services. For example, does your company have a hotspot play for restaurants and retailers? Leverage that coverage into more hotspot locations. Offer existing hotspot customers a premium analytics service, providing data you gather such as customer count/time of day, how often a customer visits an area (hourly, daily, weekly), and dwell time in the area. Building more hotspots eventually creates a hotzone that gives you even more data to mine.

Form partnerships. Work with residential and business property developers to make Wi-Fi an integral part of their approach. Developers gain a benefit for prospective tenants and a single point for communication services. You gain potential new subscribers as well as business analytics for future premium services (turning subscribers who constantly use their networks for over-the-top applications into a source of analytics and thus potential revenue).

Link enterprises. To overcome the initial costs of building an SP Wi-Fi network, look to the growing demand among enterprise businesses for deploying Wi-Fi. With a unified Wi-Fi strategy, you can link these enterprises and use their coverage areas to augment your own Wi-Fi offerings.

Lease and earn. Once you’ve built your network, you can sell or lease SSIDs. This business approach very much models the cellular backhaul that service providers now offer to other service providers.

BUILDING THE BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE

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ARE YOU READY?

CONTACT:

While licensed spectrum proponents say they’re uncertain about unlicensed spectrum use, CCI and Cisco have found success with SP Wi-Fi. We see enormous revenue potential for Tier 2 and Tier 3 service providers—and as the market matures, we expect to uncover opportunities as yet unimagined.

The expertise and resources you need to successfully deploy SP Wi-Fi are here, from CCI’s engineering know-how to our Cisco expertise to our BandWise managed solution for authentication, walled gardens and tiered services.

The land grab is happening now. Are you ready to build the network, or are you going to let another service provider seize this opportunity? 855-337-9299

info@ccisystems.com www.cciwifi.com

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