Companies involved

• Google Fiber, LiFi Consortium

Current Situation

• Radio waves– Traditional Wi-Fi is through radio waves which represent a small

fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum so as demand for wireless connectivity grows the supply of available bandwidth diminishes

– 3G mobile networks rely on an increasingly congested system of around 1.4 million cellular radio masts worldwide source

– Number of bytes we transmit through mobile devices is doubling every year, according to Cisco (2012) source

• According to the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2012:– 200 million households use Wi-Fi networks– 750,000 Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide– Wi-Fi is used by over 700 million people – 800 million new Wi-Fi devices every year source

WiFi Infographic: Hotel Lost Opportunities

• According to Xirrus and Moonblink (two companies in wireless)– A 4-star hotel claimed they lost $120k in revenue

in one year due to poor WiFi source– Survey of 53,000 hotels found WiFi was more

important than free breakfeast and free parking– Hotels.com survery found 38% of people said free

WiFi was a “make it or break it” factor when booking a hotel

– 80% of hotels offer internet speeds below 6 MbpsSource

Uses• Google Fiber

– Super fast WiFi being rolled out in select US cities– 3 pricing plans, one of them is free each month ($300 installation fee) with

unlimited data and another one is $70/month with speeds 10x faster than today’s internet

• FCC’s plan for free WiFi– The Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan to buy back some

frequencies from television stations and use them to give the country free and ubiquitous “super-WiFi” which Google and Microsoft support

– Since it would be on the same frequencies that TV uses it could reach more places than traditional WiFi and the range at which devices can communicate would see a huge boost as well (Feb 2013) source

• Starbucks and Google– All Starbucks locations in the US will have free Google WiFi instead of AT&T WiFi

source

Challenges

• Security• Encryption

WiFi Infographic: WiFi Security• 26 million UK people use WiFi, that’s 41% of the UK population• Recent experiment showed 85% of mobile users connected to a network

without knowing what they were connecting to• 637,965,373 passwords leaked globally • 33 million UK adults have used WiFi through cafes, hotels and public hotspots • 1 Terabyte of data is estimated to be stolen everyday by hackers which is

equivalent to 1 billion people having their login credentials stolen every day • Public WiFi users

– 51% use anti-virus software – 40% use a firewall– 14% use VPN

• 14% of • Cloud hotspots available in the UK

– 2011: 5,000– 2012: 15,000 (due to the Olympics?)– 2013: 16,000Source

WiFi Infographic• 71% of hospitals in North American have

biomedical devices accessing the clinical WiFi Source

• In 2013, 1 in 10 people in the world use WiFi– There are 10 billion wireless devices and 7 billion

humans – In 2020 estimated that there will be 30 billion

wireless devices with 8 billion humans, so 3.75 devices per person (finally catching up to the Italian average :-)

Source

Future

• According to Cisco in 2012 source: – In 2010, global mobile data traffic was 2.6x larger than

in 2009– Global mobile data traffic will increase 26x from 2010 to

2015, a 92 percent compound annual growth rate– Average mobile connection speed will increase 10x from

2010 to 2015 (215 kbps to 2.2 Mbps)– By 2015, global mobile data traffic will consume 75

exabytes per year, which is equal to 75 times more than all IP traffic generated in 2000, or 19 billion DVDs, or 536 quadrillion SMS text messages

–

Future• WirelessHD Consortium and Wireless Gigabit Alliance are two manufacturers competing

to deliver wireless 7x faster than today’s gigabit routers using the unlicensed 60GHz frequency band to offer more bandwidth than hardwired USB 3.0 connections source

• Cellular and WiFi source– Some predict a seamless transition between cellular and WiFi with many little hubs – With Hotspot 2.0, once a user is authorized on the network it will allow the networked device to

automatically find, select and connect to your preferred Wi-Fi and/or cellular networks and roam between Wi-Fi hotspot and to LTE and back again without needing to login back in

• LiFi (Visible Light Communication (VLC) source– Light on 1, light off 0, different flickering of the light sends out different strings (all of which can’t

be seen by the human eye) source– Visible light spectrum is 10,000x bigger than the radio frequency spectrum – Harald Hass uses light frequencies in LEDs to send a LiFi at up to 10 Gigabyters/second, fast

enough to download an HD movie in 30 seconds and safe enough to use on an airplane – Demonstrated between two smartphones during the Vegas consumer electronics show in 2012– Requires no new infrastructure– Can switch between radio frequencies and traditional WiFi if the device’s light sensor is blocked – Can work on airplanes, underwater like at an oil rig and in cars so they can talk to each other

Future• Hotspot 2.0 source

– Announced the following in June 2013– Public-access WiFi that automatically connects your phone to a WiFi network when

you enter its range– The project is an extension of the nonprofit WiFi Alliance's Certified Passpoint system– In June 2011 Wi-Fi Alliance announced it’s plan to collaborate with and Wireless

Broadband Alliance– Connections made via this system have WPA2 security protection, meaning

information is safe from other users– Hotspot 2.0 connections are made without users having to search for a network,

figure out a login and other modern WiFi hassles– When it becomes more widespread users can roam between different supported

networks staying connected – New Apple iOS 7 will be Hotspot 2.0 enabled and Samsung's Galaxy S 4 currently has

Hotspot 2.0 access– Hotspot 2.0’s success will depend on how widespread access points become

Future• Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) by Wireless Broadband Alliance

source– Aim is to deliver a public Wi-Fi that is as easy and secure as cellular

networks– Creating hotspots where devices can connect securely and

automatically with no need to manually enter user names or passwords– Designed to be very secure – Help take the heat off mobile broadband at busy times – Key milestone would be to drive wireless broadband adoption globally– Phases:

• Phase 1 (Completed): Secure and seamless authentication with automatic and network discovery and selection

• Phase 2 (In Progress – Open for enrolment): Operator policy for Wi-Fi networks and automatic online signup

• Phase 3 (To start in 3Q 2013): Explore new services based geo localization and advanced policy management