The vast majority of press and analysts registered to attend Mobile World Congress 2012 would like to see carrier-branded Wi-Fi services in place to complement the always overstretched 3G networks in Barcelona, according to new reseach.
In a new study from Kineto Wireless, provider of smart Wi-Fi solutions, 89% of press and analysts said they would like to see carrier-branded VoIP services during Mobile World Congress because it is simple to connect and would enable trusted, secure services.
Nearly 80% reported they would opt to offload their voice calls over Wi-Fi if they could, with the prohibitively high cost of roaming cited as the main reason.
A massive 90% of registered MWC media believe Wi-Fi coverage is critically important, with 80% actively seeking out Wi-Fi hotspots at the show.
Altogether, 69% of respondents said Wi-Fi coverage had been ‘poor’ at previous shows and offered the following personal tips for finding better Wi-Fi coverage during MWC: Avoid trying to connect at lunchtime or first thing in the morning; Use the conference venue rather than press centre; Avoid large crowds using laptops;
Before pressing send or publish, check if connection still alive; Hang around the booths of the major vendors and hope they have an open ‘guest’ network; Near the App Planet, the signal is stronger. But it’s a little secret… shhhh…; Make suryour hotel has good Wi-Fi. Relying on conference broadband is always dangerous and puts your coverage at risk
'Wi-Fi will be one of the most enduring stories following this year’s Mobile World Congress. Whether for offload or coverage, all of the major carriers have a Wi-Fi strategy,' said Steve Shaw, vice president of marketing for Kineto.
'Kineto has a new Smart VoIP application that addresses many of the issues our survey respondents cited. It helps operators create and brand their own over-the-top service to meet subscriber demands for mobile VoIP. If the people who analyse and write about telecoms believe operator VoIP is important, then you can bet the people reading their stories do, whether they’re end consumers or the carriers.'
Last week, Kineto launched Smart VoIP that supports a range of standard mobile telephony capabilities and is designed to run on major mobile operating systems, including iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. The application can be branded by mobile operators and downloaded to subscribers through standard application stores.
