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With the rapid popularity of smartphones, the speed at which WiFi can be developed at home is also described as alarming. At the same time in People's Daily mobile phone use, "Find WiFi" has become a new habit. Many people may even find it inconceivable that there is no wifi in a beautifully decorated café or restaurant. Even in some traditional restaurants in Guangdong, WiFi has become a standard configuration.

The reporter was informed that from the beginning of January this year, Guangdong Mobile has adjusted its WLAN (WiFi function business name). And a growing number of wireless and cable operators are deploying WiFi networks, according to a market research firm Analysysmason recently released a WiFi market report. The report also notes that 89% of broadband service providers have deployed WiFi networks to divert their wireless traffic or expand their services. 40% of service providers say they think WiFi is not just a means to divert and dredge congested networks, but also a means of providing value-added services to their users. However, when it comes to WiFi fees, or other ways to transfer payments, it is still groping forward.

Direct charge into domestic trend

If you are the province of China Mobile global users, may have been accustomed to this life ——— on the mobile phone WiFi list when the word cmcc, habitually connect and imagine free wireless internet access. But it is worth noting that this meal from the Guangzhou Asian Games began to eat the "free meal" has become a past. Starting from January 1 this year, Guangdong Mobile has adjusted its WLAN (WiFi function name) charges ——— from the past "Global Access users Free" to "full brand WLAN customers receive a monthly 1-hour WLAN free time", in addition to the provincial standard fee from 0.05 yuan/ Minutes down to 0.01 yuan/minute, the equivalent of "1.1 yuan minutes", the province to maintain 0.05 yuan/minute.

According to this calculation fee is not high, but for some people accustomed to the free WLAN meal, still some are not accustomed to. But to change the angle, on the one hand is the increase of WLAN data traffic, on the other hand is the increasing hard cost, to China Mobile as the representative of the domestic operators will certainly take the road of WLAN charges.

China Mobile's three-quarter earnings report of 2012 years ago showed that the total flow of wireless Internet traffic in the period was 626 billion MB, with mobile data traffic of 200.1 billion mb,wlan traffic of 25.9 billion MB. In other words, WLAN generated traffic has been significantly ahead of the 2G/3G data business. How to turn this part of the growth into a shining white "silver"? In fact, before the full fee, China Mobile, Chinese Telecom and Unicom have their own WLAN business charges, but with some limited free concessions.

Users are more "demanding" on fee-based services

"1 cents for 1 minutes, which means 5 hours on the Internet only cost 3 yuan." "Mr Guo, who works in an advertising agency and routinely uses China Mobile's WLAN business, says he will not have much pressure on him to pay from free to charge, but there is a psychological change." "I don't care much about the quality of the free service, because it's not money," he said. But since the start of the charge, I will be more concerned about the speed of WLAN, signal, will be disconnected and other details, after all, I became a ' consumer '. ”

The developed countries, represented by the United States, began to promote the concept of WiFi technology and "Wireless City" in China, so they also experienced the process of fee-free transfer, which also produced the idea of Mr Guo.

"We have seen this on the mobile web," Analysismason said in a study. Early data service plans charge a low fee for wireless data and do not set any limits. When the user gradually becomes accustomed to the data usage, they start to take the classification plan or the multiple device plan to limit. ”

The head of a company that provides technical support to China Telecom has told South reporters that he has inspected some of the US WiFi network technology companies, and that it is difficult to provide quality services in the WiFi environment compared to mobile networks. "The same thing happens in China, it's the biggest hurdle for Wi-Fi switching from free to charge, and operators need to explain to users in a popular way, such as ' Why do WiFi networks have one or another problem that they don't have when they're surfing the internet? ' ”

Possible transfer payments

Since fees may bring a lot of sequelae, can we make the basic WiFi business free by means of "transfer payment" and then make profits through other value-added parts? The Analysismason report says this will be the next phase of the trend, and wireless operators are beginning to do their best to achieve this.

For example, operators can collect data from the WiFi network access endpoint and sell them to advertisers or marketers, the report says. "Geographic information collected from WiFi hotspots may be more valuable than the information that wireless carriers currently collect from their cell phone towers." The reason is that the WiFi hotspot has a smaller radiation radius, which makes it more accurate to determine the user's location. The report says it makes it easier for some retailers in supermarkets to send ads and offers to users who are outside their stores.

Another more advanced form of profitability comes from Hong Kong, China. According to the Hong Kong Telecommunications Authority, there are about 8,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots in Hong Kong, in addition to the Government, most of which are provided by some 17 Internet service providers operating in the business.

In the mode of operation, Hong Kong implements the development strategy of "government-government cooperation", and the early construction of WiFi network is invested by the operators, then it buys the service. Government-bought free services such as public libraries, parks and other public places, as well as public places such as shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, and so on, the operator to operate the profit, the cost of the market, such as their own digestion. As Hong Kong is well developed and highly competitive, most shopping malls are willing to pay for it. (Fangnan Wang Wenjia Li Bing)

WiFi status of three major operators

Mobile

In the past 2012, China Mobile has vigorously promoted the construction of WiFi hotspot, and has formed 3.78 million hot spots by the end of the year. In addition, there are "wireless City" programs ——— including wireless coverage and wireless applications, and wireless coverage refers to the provision of 2g/3g/wlan network services to the public, wireless application market value of the public can be mobile phone and a variety of wireless terminals at any time, anywhere, on-demand access to government affairs and Open, Public service, personal life and other related urban service information; At the same time, with the help of IoT technology, the wireless city provides the city information application for the government and the industry users, enhances the city management level and the urban industry productivity.

Telecom

As early as 2011, China Telecom issued a "wireless China" program, strengthen the WLAN business development and coverage requirements, further enhance the coverage scale, network quality and operational management capabilities, to build carrier-level WLAN network, so that the WLAN network has become a hotspot area of large flow data bearer, forming 3G, WLAN and FTTH (Fibertothehome, Fiber to the user) the situation of coordinated development. According to China Telecom's plan last year, the number of hot spots at the end of 2012 is about 900,000.

China Unicom

China Unicom launched the smart city strategy last September: Based on the three networks of urban optical Network, WCDMA wireless network and WLAN, and based on nine data bases, the paper constructs the development model of "building, gathering and opening" to promote the development of intelligent city with the support of the national unified Intelligent City platform of cloud computing. According to China Unicom's original plan, 2012 new WiFi hotspots in the year 300,000. The number of WiFi hotspots before that was much less than China Mobile and China Telecom.