Hot Zones: On Demand Broadband?

If I gave you $20 a month off your broadband bill would you let me broadcast an SSID on your Wi-Fi access point at home? 

What If I could guarantee your uplink and downlink speeds, security and quality of service and guarantee that wherever you went in my service area you could get broadband access for free, why not?

To extend the reach and footprint of their broadband networks many MSOs and carriers are pursuing a  creative new model called "hot zones."  The idea is: simple: leverage the existing subscriber base to extend the coverage and service area of your network with a minimum of investment and maximum return. 

This is a relatively profound new trend in the market where carriers want to use Wi-Fi as the defacto connection mechanism for the last 1000 feet and want to blanket an area without having to spend hordes of money on infrastructure and labor.

Broadband subscribers are simply incented to upgrade their existing Wi-Fi routers with a special Wi-Fi "platform" that provides extended coverage, multiple SSIDs and the ability to be remotely managed. This box can be sold or subsidized by the provider.

The smart access point creates a special tunnel back to the provider's authentication servers to provide the requisite authorization of users.  The provider can remotely manage this device, dedicating discrete SSIDs for different services, classes of users or businesses.

The consumer and/or small business still maintains their own SSID and management access into the platform - just as always. But the provider can now use that platform as a way to provide access to other customers.  For instance if you're a customer of carrier X, anywhere you go where you can find a carrier X SSID you're good to go.  This helps carriers maintain "stickiness" with their customers.  Stickiness is one of the most important things in their world.

This also opens the door for carriers to strike new business relationships as well.  Dynamic SSID creation allows a carriers to present unique and secure SSIDs on demand wherever there's a smart Wi-Fi access point. A corporation could then strike a deal with the provider to enable their users secure access anywhere within the carriers coverage area.  In a given location, the smart access point will see a probe request for a specific network and signal back to a controller to see if its authorized to support that SSID. If it is, it will then automatically create that SSID with the requisite security parameters and the user will be able to connect.  Each SSID can be associated with a specific VLAN tag to segment traffic.

Advances in Wi-Fi technology - that extend signal range, increase signal reliability, enable the avoidance of interference and support for multimedia applications - are creating new models for broadband penetration and revenue generation.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Strap yourself in.