This video would be a lot more impressive if they actually showed things working… instead of the 1970s tech-TV shots of colored cables. Just goes to show you… wireless networking is a hard thing to video.
Small Business Disconnects with Mobile Workforce
December 11, 2012 by
We’re a migrant workforce, or mobile if you prefer. Regardless of semantics, people are more comfortable than ever taking their to-do list and hitting the road. Armed with smartphones and tablets, iPads and phablets, employees and executives alike are taking meetings, joining calls and doing work wherever they can take refuge — at a coffee or sports bar, a restaurant or retail store.
That’s why its so shocking to me, as a card-carrying member of the mobile workforce, to find so many SMBs that don’t have a Wi-Fi network to offer its customers access to the Internet. Are these operators trying to save a few bucks on the cost of setting up a “guest network?” Is it possibly the threat of intrusion – so a security issue? Or are these business professionals unaware of how many people in their establishment are disappointed (or not going to their businesses) because they don’t offer Wi-Fi?
My guess is that most of the companies today not offering Wi-Fi are just clueless, regardless of why. Any small business that is trying to recruit retail customers and wants new customers in their store and is not offering Wi-Fi to its customers for free is losing customers.
Before you throw the proverbial red flag for further review on this bold recommendation, let me add that yes, security is an issue. There are, of course, ways to set up the right kind of Wi-Fi network and have a simple means for providing ‘guests’ access without letting them be part of the official business network. For anyone who has basic networking skills the setup (and the cost) are pretty minimal. So that objection is overruled, and you lose one timeout.
Network professionals, mobile workers unite — and tell your SMB friends to set up a secure Wi-Fi guest network with good equipment — so that you can work where you want to and when you want to, while honoring the entities that allow you to do so with your attention — and your business.
Who’s Winning the Wi-Fi Market? A Quick Look at the Leaders
December 7, 2012 by
Thanks to the folks at IDC, a handy leaders chart: But watch out for those “others?”
Chart: Top Five Worldwide Enterprise WLAN Vendors, Revenue Market Share, 3Q 2012 Description: Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker, November 2012 Note: IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker provides insight into customer trends by delivering total market size and vendor share data for the enterprise class and consumer class WLAN markets across eight regions and 52 countries. The data is further segmented by product category, product, standard, and location. Shipment and revenue data are provided. For more information, or to subscribe to the research, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 1-650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com. Further detail about this tracker can be found at:http://www.idc.com/tracker/showproductinfo.jsp?prod_id=262Tags: IDC,Tracker, WLAN, Cisco, Aruba, HP, Ruckus, WW, 3Q 2012, Market Share, Motorola Solutions, Revenue, Vendor, Share, Q3, SizeAuthor: IDCcharts powered by iCharts
The No Connection Section — Stadiums Without Networks Are Whiffing on Revenues
December 5, 2012 by
Editor’s note: Please join me in welcoming special projects editor Keith Newman to the pages of MSR. Keith has been a long time supporter of MSR and is now adding his voice to our blog.
When I come to the game and my phone doesn’t connect, I am more confused than the Oakland Raiders’ offense. Don’t stadium managers, sports team executives and concessions marketers realize we are here watching the game and our wallet and smartphones are with us the whole time? Don’t they also realize that their job is to make sure they optimize the combined viewing experience while maximizing our spending activity?
So why does it continue to be so hard to text friends, tweet an update from our game to our followers, find out who else is at the game, call up other scores (or God forbid a video highlight from another game going on)? Some stadiums like AT&T Park get it, but they are in the minority. They do so at their own revenue peril.
With almost every new smartphone or tablet sold, another Wi-Fi connection comes into the marketplace. We understand that so many phones in a compact space like a stadium can overload the cellular network. So Wi-Fi is needed to answer the call. And while some stadiums are getting ahead of the curve, others, like Candlestick Park, remain Wi-Fi dark. It’s still unusual to find a good signal at a stadium. And because of that, there are dollars in my wallet that the stadium owner and operator will never see.
So, has the time has come for fans to cry out? To demonstrate? No. But sports fans may go on strike when it comes to attending games live. The sports fan is OK with staying home and watching the game in HD with awesome replay, store/forward, and Sling/TIVO ability. The weight is on the shoulders of these other bodies who are losing money, fans and potentially an increasing amount of revenue by not taking advantage of the enormous opportunities to improve the experience and increase revenue. It’s game time. How’s your network?
Wi-Fi Whispers: Is Time-Warner Cable Deal With WeFi About Mobile Sports Content?
December 5, 2012 by
The news that came out last week continued an interesting question: why would a cable company want to expand its free Wi-Fi services? Could it be that a big cableco sees free Wi-Fi as a way to keep its current cable customers — by making sure they can watch sports content wherever and whenever they want?
Nobody knows for sure yet, but in all the numerous news reports of the recent deal between cable giant Time-Warner Cable and Wi-Fi aggregator startup WeFi, there were a lot of details on the what but hardly any on the why.
Like other cablecos, TWC has been moving forward aggressively with a Wi-Fi hotspot deployment. By tapping WeFi’s capability to help people find free hotspots, TWC is buying rather than building, taking advantage of the idea that private networks may get built out farther and faster than even the biggest service providers could manage. But the question still lingers — why?
GigaOM’s Kevin Fitchard in the story linked above touches a bit on an idea — he quotes a WeFi exec’s idea that “cable providers want to encourage their customers to access their broadband connections and video programming outside of the home, making those services that much stickier.” But I don’t think it’s just about the sticky. I think it’s about maximizing the access to the content that is king over all other types, namely live sports content.
Sports remains the far and away No. 1 reason people watch TVs — just go find a list of the top viewed programs ever. Or check out stats from this summer’s Olympics. And a lot of that viewing is going to move to mobile screens, like tablets. So why is TWC putting Wi-Fi hotspots on the beaches of Southern California? Surprise, surprise, TWC last year paid $3 billion to snag the rights to L.A. Lakers basketball games. So now Lakers fans who are TWC subscribers can watch the games while they’re on the sand. But most importantly to TWC — they won’t cancel their cable subscriptions, meaning that TWC doesn’t have to shell out the $500 or so that is the estimated cost of finding a new subscriber.
Since it’s LA those subscribers may also be watching things like Dancing With the Stars or American Idol, but don’t kid yourself — you don’t see anyone ponying up billions in just rights fees for reality shows. And people don’t cancel cable subscriptions or buy pricey ones just to watch those shows. They do for sports, and I’m betting that cable’s big move to provide free Wi-Fi is all about making sure sports fans can watch the content they’ve already paid for — instead of, say, paying Verizon $5 extra a month to watch NFL games on your phone.
Here’s the news coverage of the TWC/WeFi deal:
Jeff Baumgartner at Light Reading —
Todd Spangler at Multichannel News —
Kevin Fitchard at GigaOM —
And the LA Times story about sports rights, also a good read: Joe Flint and Meg James, LA Times (HT to Spangler’s Twitter feed for the link)
Wi-Fi Whispers Bulletin: Cisco Buys Meraki for $1.2 Billion
November 18, 2012 by
Why wait until Wednesday? No whispering here, with the news breaking Sunday of Cisco’s $1.2 billion purchase of mesh-networking Wi-Fi provider Meraki. Coming on the heels of last week’s successful public offering by Ruckus Wireless, you’d have to say that Wi-Fi is the hottest topic in the greater tech world right now.
And if you didn’t want to say it, we will.
From a sports-specific viewpoint, it’s not clear how the Meraki purchase might help Cisco’s sports and entertainment group, since Meraki has reportedly had much more success in enterprise/campus deployments, where its easy setup and cloud-based management systems ease the process of deploying wireless networks. Since stadiums are a lot more high-touch — there are unusual RF problems caused by the buildings themselves, and the crowds of fans require fine-tuning of antenna directions — the Meraki gear may not be a big bonus, at least initially. Though according to Meraki, its gear has handled big outdoor events quite well, including the Monterey Jazz Festival. So maybe Meraki will help Cisco in the stadium-network battleground.
From a big-picture view, you can never be too thin, too rich or have too much networking intellectual property. And the billion-dollar-buy (all cash!) is a sign that Cisco, the biggest player at the table, isn’t hesitant about trying to buy a winning hand.
While we here at Mobile Sports Report have been concentrating on the deployment of stadium Wi-Fi networks, it’s clear that as a whole the greater public Wi-Fi market, of which stadiums are a part, is set to get bigger, faster. This weekend’s big cash events are just the start.
