Operator WiFi: Seamless is the wrong approach

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As well as #TelcoOTT services and voice & messaging, many of my meetings over the last month or two have been about WiFi - specifically, its evolution as a carrier-driven technology for offload and other purposes. I've been speaking with various operators, vendors and industry associations. I also participated in a recent webinar (sponsored by iPass, a client of mine) about this theme.

There appear to be two broad trends:

1) There is massive operator interest in large-scale WiFi deployments - for example, the Chinese operators, KDDI in Japan and various players in North America
2) However, there is also massive confusion and naivety about exactly how WiFi is going to be controlled, especially in terms of the user experience from the handset

There seem to be various underlying causes of this confusion:

1) Market participants from the cellular side of the industry are mistakenly assuming that "offload" is the only, or most important, use of WiFi on a handset - often without a decent definition of what offload actually means.
2) Some market participants know that there are multiple use-cases for WiFi, but are actually engaged in trying to subvert this so that their needs and requirements are better-served than those of end-users.

The problems can be largely summed up with a single word: "seamless". The cellular industry has an unhealthy obsession with getting rid of "seams", not understanding that sometimes they are valuable and worth keeping (or even worth adding deliberately).

Sometimes, seamless is good - for example, when a mobile phone user is moving and moves from one cell-tower to the next mid-call, without noticing. Having your phone automatically hook up to WiFi when you get home is good too.

But in other cases, seamlessness is a mixed blessing - for example in the case of international roaming. While it undeniably convenient at one level for handsets to transparently connect to a visited network, the downside is that this can lead to "bill shock", anticompetitive pricing or conditions - especially for the dark art of data roaming. This is why the European Commission is currently trying to re-introduce seams, potentially allowing users to select a separate roaming provider to their home operator. It is also why so many users create their own seam - switching off data roaming entirely.

And finally, there are times when seamless connection is outright bad - for example, if a device is "forced" to use a specific network, when the user or perhaps an app would prefer a different one. This is especially relevant for WiFi, where there are frequently various options for connection, with different ownership, speed, price, security and features. Most WiFi use is private connectivity (it's WLAN - ie wireless ethernet), not offload, and operators have no business becoming involved in it.
 
Think about an iPhone versus an iPod Touch. Any WiFi use on the iPod is by definition private - it can't be offload as it doesn't have a cellular radio to offload from. Therefore the same use on an iPhone should also be considered as private WiFi access, not offload, and outside of telco visibility and control.

Some of the proposed standards even suggest switching on the device WiFi non-consensually by the network (see this post of mine about OMA), while others such as the 3GPP's ANDSF tries to push or enforce preferences for network selection.

While for certain use-cases this might be beneficial (eg a Kindle-type device connecting to WiFi in the background, with no user intervention), in other cases it will lead to a significant restriction in user freedoms, and may directly inhibit some innovative business models. For example, O2 UK is exploring an onload model for WiFi, aiming to capture users from other network operators, rather than offloading its own subscribers' cellular traffic. There is plenty of scope for conflict where the device (and its SIM-driven seamless connection policies) contradict an app the user has empowered to make its own WiFi decisions.

Another angle on seamlessness comes from a venue-owners' perspective. Imagine that you run a cafe, with WiFi available for customers as perk (pun, apologies!) for their patronage. Your customers like it, some of them connect their phones or laptops, and come back regularly for coffee. Others ignore the WiFi sign for various reasons - perhaps because they are chatting rather than browsing Facebook or doing Skype video calls. Now imagine the same cafe with seamless WiFi. All customers' phones connect automatically. The net result is congestion - users get a poor experience, the cafe owner needs to upgrade the broadband connection, and meanwhile the atmosphere of the venue changes as people spend more time on their phones than with their friends. That is not a positive outcome for seamlessness and automated WiFi log-on. In some cases a little friction is a *positive* for loyalty and promotion - it gives the marketeer a better image of customer-friendliness, while limiting their extra capex/opex. The same is true of airline frequent flyer schemes, which gain loyalty despite the fact it can be hard to actually redeem points for flights.

There are also other insidious aspects here - various vendors I've spoken to have products that can monitor a user's entire handset WiFi experience, tracking which access points you connect to, perhaps enforcing policies even where those APs are not operator-owned or -affiliated. While there are some corner-case exceptions here (eg the perennial content-control for kids use case), this is not acceptable for massmarket use. Indeed, for many enterprises, an attempt by a carrier to check up on private WiFi use could constitute an unacceptable security breach.

Overall, many of the operators and standards bodies involved in carrier WiFi need to go back to the drawing board and start again. Their connection-management designs need to recognise that seams must sometimes remain visible to users, or applications acting on their behalf.

Another way to think about it is that seam=border . And borders can be crossed in many ways - a simple signpost by the roadside (eg in Schengen Europe), basic passport checks, more involved arrival cards, paid visas, deliberate illegal entry (smuggling). Or you can be taken across against your will, blindfolded in the back of a van.

Personally, I don't want my WiFi "trafficked" across borders without my consent. Seamless WiFi has its uses, but it should not be viewed as a universal target or "obvious truth" by the cellular industry.

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