Stay-at-Home is killing our WiFi Routers
“Any chain is only as string as its weakest link. And when WiFi is that weak link, carriers typically pay a price”
The recent quarantine, and mass work-from-home has changed traffic patterns dramatically. While, as we posted earlier, networks have held up better than we might have imagined, home and SOHO network performance has become a huge bottleneck – and the crisis may have brought the performance of home broadband to front-of-mind. Consumers generally cannot distinguish between the “network” and their home network/WiFi (and why should they?). It is no surprise to any of us “network-heads” that WiFi, while hugely convenient, is the weak link in most in-home broadband, and that CSP router/WiFi technology is behind the curve.
. . . And broadband CSPs are being blamed; both rightly and wrongly.
All this reflects on broadband service, and user’s perception of its reliability, performance and value. While scarce, advanced solutions do exist, from credible vendors, that would allow CSPs to improve performance, customer satisfaction and, yes, revenue.
There are also reasons why adoption by CSPs is not simple. Yet there are many opportunities if they can get it right:
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer upgrades of broadband
- Direct revenues from WiFi
- Lower support costs
- Lower churn
Appledore has published a Research Note that looks at the performance, history, costs, lost revenue — but also at the revenue opportunity that is being created. We also look inside one CSP-centric solution at what it can offer everyone in the value chain. Read more about it here.