Demand for mobile telephones rising – Ruckus

Across Africa, mobile is growing exponentially and the demand for constant connectivity is becoming insatiable, specifically in strong mobile markets such as Nigeria, Ruckus Wireless Incorporated has said.

According to the latest statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission, the country ended June 2013 with a total of 120.36 million fixed and mobile telephone subscribers, up from 117.28 million three months earlier and 113.21 million at the start of the year.

The Sales Director, Ruckus Wireless sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Michael Fletcher, said, “With this rapid growth, the expectation of increased capacity and coverage by users is exploding, but as more traffic, devices and concurrent connections hit mobile networks, many are struggling to keep up with demand, and as a result, we are seeing more free Wi-Fi and larger hotspots come to the fore.”

Fletcher, who explained that the Wi-Fi landscape in Nigeria was growing and was very opportunistic, said, “There are numerous hotspots in the densely populated areas, but the quality is poor due to interference. What’s more, in the outlying areas, Wi-Fi connectivity is scarce – meaning either consumers have a poor Wi-Fi experience or no experience at all.”

As Wi-Fi continues to proliferate at an accelerated pace with new Wi-Fi enabled devices hitting the market every day, he argued that interference in the unlicensed spectrum was rising quickly.

According to him, interference is the presence of unwanted RF signals (noise) that disrupt normal system operations, causing disruption to connectivity, and in turn, negative user experiences.

 Fletcher said, “While the move to Wi-Fi is certainly commendable, consumers/customers are looking for reliable and cost-effective connectivity; and the key here is to deploy solutions that work by allowing consumers to do what they want and when they want it, and this is where Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi comes into play.”

Smart Wi-Fi is a collection of Ruckus technologies, all designed to extend the range and reliability of wireless signals. These technologies eliminate much of the cost and complexity of conventional wireless LAN deployments.

Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi includes recent technical advances in beam steering, beam forming, adaptive signal path selection, quality of service, traffic classification, and RF routing. In simple terms, better Wi-Fi, exactly what countries such as Nigeria need.

While Wi-Fi has been around for quite some time as a consumer and enterprise technology, it has never garnered the kind of attention that it will this year and going into 2014. The reason? Wi-Fi is seen as the most economical and capacity-rich technology to help carriers address the tremendous acceleration in mobile data traffic – particularly within high-density areas.

Most geographies are seeing traffic growth of 50 to 100 per cent year-on-year with no end in sight. It is easy to do the math here and see that this will easily overwhelm the existing mobile infrastructure, even with new LTE deployments.

Read more: http://www.punchng.com/business/technology/demand-for-mobile-telephones-rising-ruckus/