By Mike Darling, Shaw Communications
Increasingly, subscribers want access to their broadband services at home, on the go and at their destinations. The value proposition of service provider Wi-Fi is to give subscribers access to their services when they are away from home at all types of destinations. In the absence of service provider Wi-Fi, subscribers must deal with authenticating to destination Wi-Fi on a case-by-case basis by asking for authentication codes, using their mobile data plans, or foregoing the use of their applications. Cisco estimates that the number of public Wi-Fi hotspots globally will quadruple from 2018-2023. Shaw operates a service provider Wi-Fi network in its cable footprint that is available free of charge to broadband wireline and wireless subscribers. This paper examines how subscribers use the service provider Wi-Fi network and seeks to answer some key questions around the value of the network, both to subscribers and to service providers.