Service Provider Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi services provided by Communication Service Providers (CSP), including cable operators, mobile operators, fixed operators, and wireless Internet service providers (WISP).

The scale and complexity of the Wi-Fi service and the need for multi-vendor support. While large enterprises can have thousands of access points, they do not come close in scale to the hundreds of thousands of access points deployed by a large service provider. For example, Enea’s customer Telkom Indonesia’s Wi-Fi network is one of the largest in the world, serving more than 70 million users through 400,000+ Wi-Fi access points. Service provider Wi-Fi is also much more complex as a Wi-Fi service provider also needs to cater to all kinds of enterprise use cases in their B2B services. Finally, a service management system for service provider Wi-Fi must also be Wi-Fi vendor agnostic. Most service providers have a multi-vendor strategy to get the most optimal solution for every use case and save money by increasing the competition among Wi-Fi equipment vendors. Some also have to support their enterprise customers’ Wi-Fi access points and gateways since they are deploying, e.g., Guest Wi-Fi services on top of their customer’s equipment.

Like any technology, Wi-Fi can be insecure if not properly configured or if outdated protocols are used. However, modern protocols such as WPA2 and WPA3, enabled by 802.1x, provide Wi-Fi security comparable to mobile networks with encrypted over-the-air traffic. In Wi-Fi offloading, Wi-Fi remains secure and encrypted because SIM-based authentication uses EAP methods that require WPA2/WPA3 encryption.

Wi-Fi used to be best-effort, with performance degrading quickly in dense areas with many users. However, Wi-Fi 6, 6E, and 7 utilize similar scheduling mechanisms as cellular networks (OFDMA), delivering a deterministic user experience even in crowded environments.

This was true to some extent, but it is now largely a problem of the past. Modern smartphones are increasingly better at addressing this issue, as they are designed to continuously evaluate network conditions and seamlessly switch to better connections when available.

Yes, this is common in public spaces like hotels, shopping malls, and airports. However, this is not the case for Wi-Fi offloading, where users are seamlessly onboarded to a secure Wi-Fi network. Many hotspots currently using captive portals are transitioning to seamless onboarding as more Wi-Fi networks join the OpenRoaming federation, advancing user experience.

Yes, Wi-Fi networks are traditionally isolated islands, but that is about to change. OpenRoaming is a rapidly expanding global federation with millions of hotspots worldwide, with the vision of making Wi-Fi as ubiquitous, secure, and seamless as cellular networks.