Wi-Fi Monetization

Monetize Wi-Fi Indirectly

The most obvious way to monetize Wi-Fi indirectly is to attract new subscribers. But there are many more ways. In fact, in our experience, the indirect monetization of Wi-Fi exceeds the direct monetization. By far. Below we will go through the most important ones.

Monetize Wi-Fi Indirectly with Reduced Churn

Gaining new subscribers is costly—and losing them is even more expensive. Carrier Wi-Fi has become the last piece of the operator’s customer retention puzzle and deserves a new return on investment (ROI) calculation. A calculation with reduced churn as the primary contributor to Wi-Fi monetization.

Operators spend 15-20% of their service revenues to stand still, with the same number of subscribers at the end of the year as they had at the beginning. What would it mean if you also could cut churn by 35% like Shaw Communications did, thanks to their Wi-Fi service?

Monetize Wi-Fi Indirectly with Wi-Fi Offload

Our mobile operator customers offload up to 30% of their traffic to their Wi-Fi networks using our mobile data offloading solution. We can clearly see the effects of this. One operator cut their cellular traffic in half at an airport when they switched on Wi-Fi offload. The FIFA 2014 bronze match in Brasil had a 70% higher usage rate than the 2014 Super Bowl XLVIII, thanks to the automatic and secure SIM authentication enabled by Aptilo for Oi and TIM.

The total cost of ownership (TCO) per bit delivered is much lower in Wi-Fi compared to cellular macro cells. That’s why our customers keep on investing in it. A study from Senza Fili Consulting shows that you can cut TCO by at least half.

Indirect Monetization by Going Wi-Fi First

Cable MSOs can light up a vast Wi-Fi network overnight by using the excess capacity in their subscribers’ homes. With the proper Wi-Fi service management mechanisms, they can do so without risking their subscriber’s service level agreements.

Many Cable MSOs offer mobile services running on a mobile operator’s network. They have become a so-called mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). A “Wi-Fi first” strategy, where they on-load the cellular traffic to their Wi-Fi network as much as possible, has a significant impact on their bottom line. The disruptive effect on the mobile industry is even more apparent with Wi-Fi Calling enabled. Wi-Fi monetization can’t be any more tangible than this.

Monetize Indirectly by Advertising

Suppose you have no subscribers to keep. No cost savings on infrastructure to make. How can you then do Wi-Fi monetization on a free Wi-Fi service? The answer is advertising and sponsored access.

GTD (former Digital Way) in Peru, with their Wi-Fi service Wigo, monetize Wi-Fi with mobile ads. The ads are tailored to the user profile and their current location. It’s a win for everyone. Users can easily log into the service with their social media accounts. Furthermore, they will only see ads interesting to them. Advertisers get hyper-targeted campaigns, even down to a single location within, e.g., a shopping mall. Digital way can sell high-value advertising space.

Monetize Wi-Fi Directly

In many parts of the world, Wi-Fi services are considered to be free of charge. Thus direct Wi-Fi monetization can be a challenging task for service providers. Below we will discuss the most common ways of monetizing Wi-Fi directly.

Monetize Directly with Managed Guest Wi-Fi

Selling operator-managed guest Wi-Fi  services to different verticals has proven to be a good source of revenue. Our 100+ service provider customers have done this direct Wi-Fi monetization since 2001. They have provided managed guest Wi-Fi for thousands of businesses.

With the Enea Aptilo SMP Venue Wi-Fi Manager (VWM), featuring a multitenancy captive portal and analytics, monetization of B2B / B2B2C Wi-Fi services has become easier than ever before. A subset of the most wanted Enea Aptilo VWM functions is also available in our cloud service, the Enea Aptilo Guest Wi-Fi Cloud. If you want a fully customisable solution, you should base your deployment on the Enea Aptilo SMP (software) or SMP-S (service).

The demographics information retrieved from integration with CRM systems or social media login for the Wi-Fi service has a very high value for business customers such as shopping malls. Some are prepared to pay more for the analytics than for the Wi-Fi service as such.

Some of our customers monetize their free Wi-Fi services by combining two pieces of information they can retrieve from our system—insights about the location and the user demographics such as gender and age. With a Wi-Fi marketing tool, they can engage users with relevant and very targeted advertising. The right user gets the right message at the right location and time.

Furthermore, operator-managed guest Wi-Fi is a strategic B2B asset for operators. They can also monetize indirectly by selling more services to their business customers.

Monetize Directly with Corporate Wi-Fi Services

There is a huge demand for managed Wi-Fi and LAN services. But the ones that need it most, smaller businesses with less than 20 employees, will most likely never be a profitable customers. It’s a pity as those businesses are 90% of all companies. Opportunity lost.

However, with the Enea Aptilo SMP Virtual Service Provider features, you will profitably reach a considerable part of this mass market. Target businesses such as co-working offices that “aggregates” many small businesses and make them virtual service providers on your infrastructure. They will take care of the sales and the daily operation of the service. It’s managed IT services that scale.

Monetize Wi-Fi Directly with Increased ARPU

Many customers, such as Telia Company, gain additional revenue by only including Wi-Fi in the higher-tier service plans. The result is more revenue per subscriber (ARPU).

Other operators, such as Singtel and Telenet, have increased their prices thanks to their excellent Wi-Fi services.

Learn more about Wi-Fi monetization from this excellent analysis from Tefficient – using public Wi-Fi as a customer magnet.

Monetize Wi-Fi Directly with Differentiated Services

In many markets and locations, our customers offer a basic Wi-Fi service limited in time or data. They then charge for a premium Wi-Fi service, with better bandwidth, most often through a captive portal experience with a credit card payment. The need for premium services will only increase with the increase of active users and data-hungry applications. You get what you pay for. Users understand this.

Direct Wi-Fi Monetization with Wholesale

Deploying a Wi-Fi network is not for everyone. But, providing Wi-Fi services is a must for operators that want to stay relevant. This opens a good market for wholesale of Wi-Fi capacity.

The good news for us is that you still need the Enea Aptilo Service Management Platform (SMP), or its cloud service version SMP-S, to control your Wi-Fi service, even if you don’t build your own Wi-Fi network. Our customer Three UK (3UK) is a good example.