WNA

GOWEX is taking its global model of Wireless Smart Cities to Chicago, its fourth WiFi City in the country, after New York, San Francisco and Miami.

The 9.5 million inhabitants in the Windy City’s metropolitan district and its 46 million annual visitors will now will be able to enjoy the free WiFi, similar to other GOWEX cities such as New York, Madrid, Paris and Dubai. The GOWEX footprint covers some 70 cities around the world.

Today, more than 450 free WiFi hotspots have been deployed, mostly Downtown and the central business district.

The GOWEX business model monetizes its Wi-Fi networks by generating revenues from roaming and offloading that come through their proprietary platform. Revenues are also generated by Geolocalized advertising and revenues from Smart City services, also owned by GOWEX, for governmental use.

Gowex aims to turn private hotspots–such as those found in shops and restaurants–into public hotspots that can easily be accessed for free by users registered on the We2 network for seamless roaming across the city. It will also include access to Gowex’s hotspots in cities worldwide.

GOWEX Wireless Smart Cities is global model with some 85 cities internationally. As in all GOWEX networks, any user with an account will get a 1 Mbps speed connection for free and will have other Premium options.

Hotspot 2.0 is a new set of protocols to enable cellular-like roaming. A variety of partnerships are developing nationwide and world-wide, including:

• The “CableWiFi” network identifier (SSID) allows devices to auto-connect to a “CableWiFi” hotspot when in range. The wireless gateways that Comcast is installing in Xfinity Homes, contain two SSIDs, enabling consumer cable WiFi boxes to “share” their WiFi. It’s free if you’re a cable subscriber. Cable operators hope to deploy some 8 million neighborhood hotspots by the end of the year, helping the MSOs compete with mobile carriers.
  
• Facebook Wi-Fi is a partnership between Cisco and Facebook that allows Wi-Fi users to log into access points, using Facebook credentials. Facebook said it had 819 million monthly mobile users (73%) out of its total 1.15 billion users in Q2 2013. It’s primarily driven by advertising revenue.
  
• Europe’s Fon WiFi community. Uses a $59 Fonera WiFi router. Fon claims to have the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, with over eight million hotspots as at July 2013.
  

IDC estimates that the worldwide enterprise market for Cloud-managed WLAN infrastructure and managed services is expected to reach $2.5 billion by 2018.

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