Asia-Pacific leads the way for hotspot growth

LEDBURY, UK -- The Asia-Pacific region had the most dramatic spread of wireless LAN hotspots of anywhere in the world during 2003, seeing a more than ten-fold increase in hotspot numbers. According to figures from the BWCS Wireless LAN Continuum service, there were more than 21,300 hotspots in the Asia-Pacific region by end-2003, up from around 2,000 one year ago.

The editor of the W-LAN Continuum service, BWCS analyst Peter Bell, said that the region’s WiFi markets have seen some dramatic developments over the past year. "While operators in North America and Western Europe made most of the early running in the public access hotspot sector, 2003 has undoubtedly been the year that the Asian WiFi sector came into its own."

The Asia-Pacific hotspot provider with easily the most ambitious plans has been Korea Telecom, which has now installed well over 10,000 public access hotspots in its home market, accounting for more than one third of all hotspots worldwide. "Unlike many other wireless ISPs, KT has been happy to roll out WiFi access points in consumer-oriented locations rather than focussing mainly on the business sector. It has been aided by the huge popularity of fixed broadband technologies in Korea," Bell said. KT is now able to claim more than 300,000 WiFi subscribers, two-thirds of which also subscribe to a home DSL service.

KT was also involved in another of Asia’s main WiFi developments of 2003, the formation of the Wireless Broadband Alliance. The WBA -- founded by KT, Telstra, Maxis, StarHub and China Netcom last March -- came together in order to promote WiFi services via joint marketing and roaming initiatives and to establish recognised standards of service. By the end of the year the member companies were operating more than 13,000 hotspots between them, with the vast majority of these in Asia.

The BWCS Wireless LAN Continuum service offers subscribers a detailed insight into the state of play of WiFi rollouts around the world. Featuring dozens of profiles of the major markets and the most important players, as well as access to a series of insight reports and the latest industry news and analysis, the W-LAN Continuum is a one-stop resource for up-to-date wireless LAN information.

Mobile operators

In another report issued this week, BWCS says that mobile operators are in danger of missing out on the wireless enterprise market through fear. Mobile operators are currently struggling to increase their share of the global market for corporate mobile services, which BWCS believes will be worth around US$220 billion by 2008.

However, despite the fact that the major mobile companies have already launched a wide array of products and services aimed at the enterprise market, the BWCS report, Wireless Enterprise Strategies for Mobile Operators, points out that demand for these has been very limited. Instead of waiting for salvation to come in the form of faster data services, BWCS argues that operators must take a long hard look at improving their response to the issues they currently face in this market.

"The major criticism one can aim at mobile operators is that they lack Thought Leadership in this lucrative sector," said report author Pippa Walton. "In wide-ranging discussion within the industry we found that this is the key element that is missing.” Walton adds, “While all players in this sector -- enterprise customers, operators and systems integrators -- believe that the wireless enterprise market has huge potential, each believes that the realisation of this potential will come from another quarter. In short, no-one is taking charge."

Establishing themselves as the leaders in this sector is, the report argues, vital for the operators’ future success. Yet this does not mean developing applications all by themselves. Rather, BWCS says, the operators must become the focal point and communicators for innovative ideas, applications and services within the industry.

The report calls for the large players to take a more proactive role in being the centre of development and innovation in the industry. The report highlights some areas where this is beginning to happen and gives the authors and the industry hope, rather than hype, for the future.