29 November 2024

Tiago Rodrigues, CEO, Wireless Broadband Alliance

In today’s world, wherever consumers are, they ‘just’ want to get connected to networks quickly and easily. We are spoilt with the diversity of networks that we can join across mobile networks and public Wi-Fi, but as we’ve all experienced, getting connected quickly can be challenging, in particular to Public-Guest Wi-Fi. Venues of course want to engage with their public visitors, but whether it is the Asian Games, a team sporting event, shopping centre, or K-pop concert at one of the 80,000+ capacity stadiums South Asia has to offer, it can be a challenging experience for venue and visitors alike to create a user experience that works securely for all.

Connecting visitors to a public space, venue or event, is a key part of an event or brand experience. For the visitor it is fundamental - they want to be connected quickly and efficiently while knowing that their connection is secure and not open to having their identity compromised or data, such as payment card details, stolen. In the past, this has not been easy, because public Wi-Fi is characterized by a larger number of transitory individual users connecting to the same hotspot – how do you make it easy and secure when you don’t know your users until they want to connect?

For brands, venues and network owners, secure public Wi-Fi is an integral part of the brand experience, allowing them to share information, or special features to enhance an experience, as well as fulfil regulatory requirements they may have. It also provides valuable analytics and engagement tools that are essential for building and enhancing the customer relationship. But achieving this requires them to know who is connecting.

In the majority of cases today, venues can engage with their guests during the signup process via a captive portal – but these solutions do not address the visitors desire to ‘just connect’ and can be complex to run. First you need to know which SSID to connect with and then go through a Captive Portal, normally taking several minutes to complete. Traffic may be free, sponsored or charged for, with throttled speeds or user data collected to sell to other parties. This poor experience often leads to users choosing to rely on a cellular network, if available, losing the venue a valuable opportunity to engage and improve their venue experience. These challenges and recent issues surrounding the implementation of MAC randomization by the major device operating systems, such as iOS, Android and Windows are headaches that are easily addressed with the introduction of OpenRoaming. It ensures an automatic connection with security and privacy for Wi-Fi in public space and venue visitors, while still enabling the same engagement and analytics options available today to network operators and venues.

The OpenRoaming alternative

OpenRoaming is an industry standard which creates the framework to connect billions of users and things to millions of Wi-Fi networks globally. It is an open connectivity framework for all organizations in the wireless ecosystem to power new opportunities in the 5G era.

Unlike captive portals, once a device has been successfully onboarded to an OpenRoaming compliant network, the connection is fully secure and future connections will be automatic, while still retaining the ability for venues and network owners to engage with visitors, via notification pop-ups to the device. Those visitors also retain their privacy and the ability to instantly connect to any future OpenRoaming network they come into contact with.

With user engagement high on the list of priorities for venue owners, network operators and users alike, developing a strong business case for public Wi-Fi, including how to improve user engagement with the use of OpenRoaming technology over legacy captive portal Wi-Fi is critical. The improved user engagement offered through these technologies can bring about significant business benefits including:

• Cost reduction & cost control: Implementing efficient onboarding processes and standardized interfaces can help reduce the costs associated with managing and maintaining Wi-Fi networks, especially for venues with high user traffic.
• Increased revenue opportunities: By offering seamless and engaging user experiences, venues can attract more users, leading to potential revenue streams through advertising, pay-as-you-go models, or partnerships with third parties and roaming services
• Regulatory compliance: Understanding and implementing best practices for user engagement can help industry players comply with regulatory requirements related to user privacy, data protection, and network security.
• Competitive advantage: Industry players that excel in user engagement and provide a seamless Wi-Fi experience can gain a competitive edge in the market, attracting more customers and partners. Once a user is registered and has a profile installed on their device, the venue owner of the Wi-Fi network can identify the customer and send them personalized messages aligned with their CRM, for example ‘welcome messages’ containing personalized promotions based on their user preferences and past history at that venue.
• Wi-Fi roaming: Facilitated by the WBA’s OpenRoaming Federation, Wi-Fi roaming offers venues a valuable revenue stream and enhanced user experience. It simplifies Wi-Fi connectivity for users, ensuring secure network access and increasing customer satisfaction. Roaming can also be a form of user exchange, allowing seamless connectivity across partnerships, enriching and simplifying the user experience. GDPR guidelines are implemented in OpenRoaming, ensuring customer data privacy and security, which is crucial for maintaining trust and compliance.
• Customer care: with OpenRoaming the connection to Wi-Fi is fully automatic, requiring no user intervention, making it very simple. This reduces the number of enquiries to a venue’s customer care support lines to gain information such as the SSID network name, correct password, connection instructions or other support.

A great visitor experience

By understanding and addressing the requirements of both venues and their visitors, businesses can enhance the overall user experience, reduce costs, and unlock new revenue opportunities.