Why operators should invest in offloading to WiFi Networks?

As mobile operators in India fight with challenging situations to handle mobile data in an efficient manner, offloading of data with the help of WiFi technology can potentially solve this issue and provide better operating efficiencies for the operator community.

This is already gaining big ground in other global locations such as Europe where mobile operators utilize their networks upto a point of operation and beyond that, data is handled by either small cell network or a Wifi enabled network.

This is proving to be a great way to ease out the data congestion and backhaul issues related with mobile operators and most importantly, ease out the strain on their overstretched networks by offloading an increasing amount of data traffic onto Wi-Fi and small cell networks.

This holds special importance for operators in India where there is huge amount data strain being put on operator networks. Services such as video streaming including on-demand services, is one of the applications that drive data offloading to Wi-Fi networks.

“There are a number of unlimited data plans being circulated for the consumers and as users go for such plans, usually it is operator’s network that gets clogged and prompts congestion. The proliferation of mobile broadband devices such as tablets, smartphones etc when coupled with the unlimited data bundles from operators, has led to network congestion and deteriorating network quality," says an industry expert.

In such a scenario, operators have two choices – they can either invest in building their network in a better manner, (basically having more cell towers so that the space between two is reduced) or the other more viable option - offload the data to wired networks.

Well, in today’s pressing situations, operators are going towards both ways. But it takes a long time to build out cellular infrastructure. And this is driving carriers to offload data to Wi-Fi networks and gain customer’s confidence by offering uninterrupted network quality.

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