Unlike cellular services, the short-range nature (100-500 feet) of Wi-Fi means it will take many access points at a wide number of locations – cafés, hotels, airports, conference centers – for it to be ubiquitous. Due to Wi-Fi’s unlicensed spectrum, short range and low barrier to entry, hotspots will remain tremendously fragmented. There will be hundreds of thousands of hotspots and thousands of individual Hot Spot Operators once the network is fully built out. No one company can own enough hotspot locations to provide a large enough footprint for subscribers on the move.
To solve this problem and provide ubiquitous access to hotspots, several types of companies are emerging in the Wi-Fi industry. Their specialties break down into four distinct industry layers, with their success determined by their ability to execute within their own layer and partner with the layers above and below:
- Brand layer: Companies with large end-user subscriber bases that generate demand.
- Aggregation layer: Companies that aggregate fragmented hotspots, provide roaming client software, settlement, mediation, clearing and support – this is what Boingo does.
- Hot Spot Operator layer: Companies that recruit venues and deploy and manage hotspot equipment.
- Venue layer: Location owners that host Wi-Fi access points as a benefit for their customers.
(For a more detailed discussion of Wi-Fi industry segmentation,
click here.)
Boingo is the only aggregation services company completely specialized in wireless. As a result, Boingo has assembled the largest group of Hot Spot Operators and serves the largest set of Brand layer service providers.
With Boingo Platform Services, service providers can increase the odds of success by decreasing their time to market and focusing on building a subscriber base.
