Leap Day may be over but Wi-Fi is taking a huge leap into the future. Imagine never having to fiddle with passwords to get your phone or tablet onto a hotel's Wi-Fi. Imagine Pandora automatically jumping from 3G to a local hotspot without missing a beat. These are some of the promises that our partner, Cisco, is making with a new Wi-Fi technology it introduced on Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Cisco is releasing the first Wi-Fi access point to use a new technology called Hotspot 2.0.
Hotspot 2.0 is a specification that Cisco helped to write for the Wireless Broadband Alliance. It lets a user's mobile device roam from a carrier 3G/4G network to a hotspot or from hotspot-to-hotspot in the same way your phone now jumps from cell tower to cell tower.
Hotspot 2.0 taps into technology called "small cell networks" which works with licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Cisco says that enterprises will be able to get it, too, without buying new gear. Cisco is promising that most of its 12 million older access points will qualify for Hotspot 2.0 as a software upgrade.Hotspot 2.0 helps carriers solve the problem of crummy network service on their 3G/4G. As more mobile devices come online, carriers are looking for ways to offload data traffic to Wi-Fi.
However, the hotspot does need to have the technology installed as part of the Wi-Fi access point and the phone needs to support it too. So hotspot utopia won't be here for a while, but when it does arrive it will be a great day for the hospitality industry - finally hotels will have the technology to support all their mobile obsessed guests with limited complaints! If you’re interested in utilizing Wi-Fi or other technologies Percipia can help! For more information please visit www.percipianetworks.com
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