Wi-Fi in 25% of Homes Globally!

New research from Strategy Analytics indicates that a quarter of homes worldwide or 439 million dwellings, are equipped with Wi-Fi today. The number is expected to grow to 800m units, or 42% penetration, in 2016.

This is a staggering achievement and a testament to the features, capabilities and benefits of Wi-Fi.

Mobile Usage Skyrockets In the Home

While it’s no surprise to anyone, Informa has taken the important step of quantifying what we already know: the majority mobile data traffic will be generated in the home.

In research released by Informa a couple of months ago and re-introduced this week, Informa estimates that 40% of mobile data usage happens in the home today, growing to 58% of traffic in 2013. It’s much cheaper and easier to offload that traffic onto the user’s own broadband network via Wi-Fi or femtocell than carry it over the macro RAN.

The research also notes that mobile voice usage in the home should rise to 49% of a subscriber’s total minutes in 2013, up from 42% today. Add in the estimated 30% of calls which happen in the office, and a whooping 70% of mobile voice usage happens indoors.

With more than half of all voice and data traffic being generated indoors, Wi-Fi or femto-based Home Zone services should be mandatory from operators in the near future.

Home zones do it all:

• Offload the macro network
• Backhaul voice/data traffic over the internet
• Create ‘home zone’ specific voice/data services and applications

Well, not actually 'dead'...

Interesting commentary from Philip Berne’s blog...the other day he posted a piece called “How to kill the iPhone”.

Now I don’t think anyone really wants the iPhone ‘dead’.

I’ve actually had several conversations with people who believe that live or die, the iPhone has already been successful in shaking up the status quo and gotten people to “think different” about phones.

But Philip’s post is interesting because it explores other ways to “think different” in the mobile community, ideas that could take some of the wind out of Apple’s sails.

While he throws out some great suggestions (Playstation phone, Vista phone, a ‘real’ N95), the one that is of the most interest here is the reference to T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home service:

If you can't cut the price of the phone, cut the price of the service. UMA lets your cell phone hop from your carrier's network to your home or office's Wi-Fi, without cutting you off. Presumably, calls made on Wi-Fi will cost you less than those transmitted through your carrier's towers. T-Mobile has been sporadically vocal about this service, called T-Mobile @Home, and has been beta testing in the U.S., but has yet to announce an official rollout. Besides the iPhone's actual hardware cost, customers could be looking at mandatory, 2-year contracts with plans that will run $70 a month or more. A $100 cell phone plan for iPhone early adopters isn't inconceivable. Were T-Mobile to step in with a reasonably priced hardware setup and an even better monthly rate, perhaps lower than $30/month, including myFaves but not counting minutes used on Wi-Fi networks, they would be able to compete with the iPhone in a way no carrier has mentioned, at the mailbox instead of the storefront.

The service is coming. Be sure to register for it at their site: www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com

I was chatting with a rep at my local store who confirmed the service is very close, new handsets from Nokia and Samsung are on the way, and that they are quite excited about it. Start lining up at your local T-Mobile stores today!